PRESENTERS

Stephen F. Austin, PhD, is professor of voice and coordinator of the Texas Center for Performing Arts Health at the University of North Texas, Denton. He joined the faculty of UNT in 2001 after several years of teaching at Louisiana State University. He teaches applied voice and vocal pedagogy. He earned a master’s degree in vocal performance from UNT and continued his studies at the University of Iowa, where he received a PhD in voice science from the Department of Communication Disorders under the direction of Dr. Ingo Titze. His unique training in performance and voice science has placed Dr. Austin at the forefront of interdisciplinary work in voice science and vocal pedagogy. He is an active performer, published author and a popular lecturer in vocal pedagogy and voice science. He has presented recitals, lectures and masterclasses across this country, in England, the Netherlands, China and Australia. He has been featured on the faculty of the Annual Symposium: Care of the Professional Voice sponsored by the Voice Foundation in Philadelphia. He has made invited presentations to the national conventions of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Music Teachers National Association and to the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS). He has offered lectures and masterclasses at national and international conferences and workshops, including the Westminster Choir College Summer Workshop, the international meeting of the Physiology and Acoustics of Singing Conference, NATS mid-winter workshops and Pan European Voice Conference held in London, England. He has appeared as special guest at the national conference of the Australian National Association of Teachers of Singing. He has also appeared as special guest for the New York Singing Teachers Association.

Dr. Austin is recognized for his singular contribution to the literature in vocal pedagogy through his column that he created for the JournalofSinging,“Provenance.” He published almost 60 articles in 15 years on the historical principles of voice teaching as derived from the writings of important and eminent teachers of the past. Those articles have recently been released in book form by Inside View Press – Provenance: Historic VoicePedagogyViewedthroughaContemporaryLenswhich is available at www.voiceinsideview.com.

Dr. Austin is known as an excellent teacher and known for his ability to clarify for the voice teaching community the complexities of voice science and to make it applicable to the studio teacher and singer. His articles on this subject have been published in AustralianVoice , the official publication of the Australian National Association of Teachers of Singing, the ChoralJournal, and in the JournalofSinging.His scientific research has focused on the articulatory behavior of classically trained singers and has been published in the JournalofVoice . He is a member of the editorial board of the JournalofSingingand serves on the Voice Science Advisory Committee of NATS. He has served as a member of the Science Advisory Committee of the Voice Foundation, where he was awarded the prestigious Van A. Lawrence Fellowship Award. Most notably, Dr. Austin is a successful teacher and has students singing professionally in this country and in Europe and with more than a dozen former students in faculty positions around the United States.

Raymond Wise, PhD, a native of Baltimore, Md., began his musical career at three, singing gospel music with his family singing group The Wise Singers. Dr. Wise earned a BFA in music (piano and voice) from Denison University (Granville, Ohio). He did additional studies in opera, art, and German at the Institute for European Studies in Vienna, Austria, and African American history, music, and dance at San Francisco State University in San Francisco, California. Dr. Wise earned his master’s and doctorate in music education from The Ohio State University.

Dr. Wise currently serves on Indiana University’s faculty in Bloomington, Indiana, as a professor of practice in the African American African Diaspora Studies department. In addition, he serves as the associate director of the African American Arts Institute, an IU division devoted to African American music and dance performance. Dr. Wise conducts the African American Choral Ensemble, recently featured in the Emmy Award-winning PBS documentary, Amen:MusicoftheBlackChurch.He has served on The Ohio State University and Denison University faculties and is an adjunct professor at Trinity Lutheran Seminary (Columbus, Ohio) and Trevecca College (Nashville, Tennessee).

Dr. Wise is an ordained minister and has served as a church musician for more than 45 years. He has appeared on radio and television, recorded 25 albums, and performed with opera singers, orchestras, dance companies, and professional recording groups. He has toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Africa and Asia as a singer, pianist, composer, lecturer, choreographer and conductor for honor choirs and choral festivals. Wise has penned more than 680 compositions and received numerous commissions. His works are published by Hinshaw, GIA, Hal Leonard, MusicSpoke, Abingdon Press and the United Methodist Publishing House. His Anthologyof21Spiritualsforthe21stCenturyhas received national and international acclaim.

As a composer, Wise has penned more than 680 compositions that have been performed and recorded by local, national and international recording artists. Numerous national music publishers publish Dr. Wise’s works, including GIA, Hinshaw Music, Hal Leonard, Abingdon Press, MusicSpoke and the United Methodist Publishing House. Wise was recently awarded a writer/editor series with Hinshaw Publications. His works are in hymnals such as “Zion Still Sings,” the “Africana Hymnal,” and the “Lead Me Guide Me” Catholic Hymnal. In 2003, Dr. Wise released the Raymond Wise Choral Sheet Music Series, through which more than 200 of his gospel, spiritual, and choral arrangements are available and serves as a writer/editor for the Raymond Wise Choral Series with Hinshaw Music Publishers

Dr. Wise has performed his compositions at Carnegie Hall and other major halls throughout the world, including the Kennedy Center and National Cathedral (Washington, DC.) and Berlin Philharmonic Hall, Smetana Hall (Prague, Czech Republic), Shenzhen Grand Theater (Shenzhen, China), Chamsil Gymnasium Olympic Stadium (Seoul, Korea).

His notable works include “Afro-American Suite,” written for bass-baritone and Chorus. Wise co-wrote the script for GodWhatColorIsTroublewith director Ron Pitts and has written the music for more than 20 original musical theater productions, including Dwight Collin’s DarkSymphony , the Samuel S. Davis production of TheSnowQueen , and the Amera-flora production of ListenWithYourHeart . Wise composed the musical score for the children’s opera “Barefoot.” Barefoot, originally composed to be performed by Opera Columbus’ educational outreach program, has also been performed by The Children’s Theater Company of Winston-Salem and Winston-Salem State University, in which Dr. Maya Angelou performed the role of narrator.

In 2004, Wise released an anthology of spirituals titled, 21Spiritualsforthe21stCenturywhich features 23 of his concert spiritual arrangements. This anthology has received national and international acclaim. Since releasing the 21Spiritual’scollection, Dr. Wise has received commissions and invitations to compose original works for the Penn State University Spiritual’s Festival and Winterfest, The American Spiritual’s Ensemble, The AME Congress 145th Anniversary Celebration, the International Spiritual’s Festival held in honor of Moses Hogan in Prague, the Czech Republic in the summer of 2008, the Springfield Mass Unity Festival, the Trenton Children’s Chorus, the Blooming Songs Children’s music project, American Choral Director’s Association, and others.

Wise is the founder and president of Raise Productions’ Center for the Gospel Arts, a gospel music production and publishing company in Columbus, Ohio, established to provide educational training and resources for gospel artists and the community. He served as the director of the Hampton University Minister’s Conference Choir Directors’ and Organists’ Guild and Academy, which provides intensive training in African American sacred music for church musicians. He has also served as a member of the academic faculty for the Gospel Music Workshop of America for 35 years. Dr. Wise served as the ethnic and American music repertoire and standards chair for the American Choral Director’s Association Central Division (ACDA). His knowledge of the gospel and classical music genres has enabled him to serve as a consultant and clinician in academic and gospel music settings. Wise is known for helping choirs perform gospel music authentically.

Robin Aronson is a professor of voice and acting in the Department of Theatre at The University of Southern Mississippi and president of the Lessac Training and Research Institute. As one of 55 Lessac Voice and Body certified trainers in the world, Robin most recently served as vocal coach for TheTempestReimaginedproject with the Philippine Educational Theatre Association in Manila. Robin has taught International Lessac workshops and master classes in Australia, Ireland, England, Croatia, Philippines and Austria. Ms. Aronson also created the first Lessac training program globally to achieve Lessac Practitioner status for graduate students at the University of Rijeka. Presently, Robin is mentoring a MFA voice and speech candidate and the first international intern in the history of Southern Miss from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney, Australia. Robin has been the vocal dialect coach for the past 13 years for Southern Miss, including DancingatLughnasa,HitchcockBlonde, WaitingfortheParadeandCandida.Additional vocal coaching credits include OurCountry’sGoodfor the University of New Orleans and AMemberofTheWeddingat Triad Stage in Greensboro, North Carolina. This past fall, Robin was nominated for her fourth Excellence in Directing Award for NextToNormalat Southern Miss. Robin has served as the chair of the Voice and Speech Committee for the Southeastern Theatre Conference and is a member of the Voice and Speech Trainer’s Association.

A native of Jackson, Mississippi, Phyllis Lewis-Hale has performed/presented in Italy, Japan, Taiwan, Germany, Austria, Bermuda and throughout the United States. Some highlights in her career include receiving several performance awards, such as the winner of the IBLA Grand Prize in the International “Monteverdi” Vocal Competition held in Italy, a winner in the New Jersey Association of Verismo Opera Vocal Competition held in New York, and the recipient of an Encouragement Award from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Awards. She has performed with opera companies such as Indianapolis Opera, Opera Memphis, Mississippi Opera, Opera Ebony, Houston Ebony Opera, and OPERA/SOUTH Company. She has also performed as guest soloist in concert and recital across the nation. Lewis-Hale recorded the “Songs of Separation” of William Grant Still for WGUC Radio in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as an assistant director of opera and the director of opera scenes for various programs, such as The Brevard Music Center in North Carolina, the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music, and the historic OPERA/SOUTH Company of Jackson State University.

As an avid researcher, Lewis-Hale’s efforts include the resurgence of the Negro spiritual and the Black or African American Opera Company as integrative educational tools and sources for arts awareness in the 21st century. her work focuses on identifying, preserving and performing concert adaptations of the underexplored folk songs that originated with the enslaved African, who were dispersed throughout the United States in the mid-18th and 19th centuries and the art songs and operas composed by Afro-diasporic composers. LewisHale has presented lecture/recitals at numerous colleges, universities and conferences such as the National Association of African-American Studies National Conference, the National Association of Teachers of Singing’s state, regional and national conferences and the Super Regional and National Conferences of the College Music Society. Her most recent publication, “From Old Creole Days: Sampling the Afro-Creole Folk Song of Louisiana of the Late 19th Through 20th Centuries,” was published in the National Association of Teachers of Singing, JournalofSinging.She also presented a lecture-recital on the same topic at the 55th NATS National Conference held in Las Vegas, Nevada, and at other regional and national conferences in the past several years.

Lewis-Hale received the masters and doctoral degrees from the University of Cincinnati CollegeConservatory of Music and the Bachelor of Music Education degree for Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi. She currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Voice and the Director of the Opera Workshop at Jackson State University. She has served as the Mississippi district governor and president of the National Association of Teachers of Singing and the vocal area chair and vice president for collegiate and national competitions of the Mississippi Music Teachers Association. Lewis-Hale recently received a Mississippi

Humanities Council Grant in support of a project entitled “From Delta Blues to Opera News: A Mississippi Musical Exposition,” which was produced in October 2021.

Lewis-Hale is the coordinator of the first Annual HBCU Intercollegiate Opera Forum, which was held on March 4, 2021 via Zoom. This very important event culminated into major, sustainable operatic collaborations between the participating institutions.

Ron (Ronald) Hancock, BC-HIS joined his family’s Beltone Hearing Aid practice in 2010. He is Board Certified in Hearing Instrument Sciences and an Advanced Master Hearing Aid Practitioner. Ron owns the Beltone Hearing Care Centers in his hometown of Hattiesburg, as well as additional clinics in Laurel, Gulfport and Biloxi/St.Martin, Mississippi. In addition to Mississippi, Ron is also licensed in Alabama and Florida. He is a member of the International Hearing Society (IHS), the Florida Society of Hearing Health Professionals (FSHHP), the Mississippi Hearing Aid Association (MHAA) and the Alabama Society of Hearing Healthcare Providers (ASHHP), where he most recently served as director of governmental affairs. At home in Hattiesburg, Ron is active in his community. He serves as a volunteer for the Hattiesburg Arts Council and as immediate past chair of Partners for the Arts at The University of Southern Mississippi. Ron also holds a Bachelor of Music degree from that same institution.

“I am a strong advocate for the hearing-impaired. I’ve successfully worked to change the tax laws in Mississippi so that hearing aid purchases are now tax-free - saving Mississippians hundreds of dollars on their hearing aid purchases. Likewise, I have petitioned for better access to the state- and federally-mandated programs for free amplified/captioned telephone service for the hearing-impaired. I continue to advocate for better care for hearing-impaired veterans throughout Mississippi and the rest of the country. Improving how my patients hear and understand the world around them is what I consider to be my life’s work. At my core, I like to help people. I find that few things are more rewarding than helping my patients improve their quality of life through better hearing.” - Ron

Hancock

Together with Beltone’s 80+ year history, Ron and his talented staff share a combined 50 years of hearing healthcare experience with their patients.

A native of Havana, Cuba, Dr. Dario Martin is a versatile pianist with a growing international career in solo performance, chamber music and collaborative piano. He has won first prizes in international piano competitions in Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico and the United States. Notably, he won the Concerto Competition at Indiana University in 2018, performing Ligeti’s piano concerto as a soloist. Other awards include first prize in the Jose Jacinto Cuevas Yamaha Piano International Competition in Mexico and first prize in the National Piano Competition UNEAC in Havana, Cuba. Dr. Martin currently works as a Staff Pianist at The University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.

Dr. Martin finished his doctoral studies in piano performance at Indiana UniversityBloomington in the piano studio of Arnaldo Cohen. Previous studies include a master’s degree and Performer’s Diploma at Southern Methodist University, with eminent artist Joaquin Achucarro, in addition to his Bachelor of Music in piano performance earned at the Instituto Superior de Arte of Havana in 2011.

Dr. Martin has given solo and chamber music recitals in Austria, Costa Rica, Cuba, England, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Panama, Spain and the United States. He has played as a soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra of Cuba, the Havana Chamber Orchestra and the Yucatan Symphony Orchestra, among others. His first CD, ElÁlbumdelaCiudadCeleste , was released in Cuba in 2011 and received the Cubadisco Award to the Best Classical Solo Album. Other recordings include the CD Netzaj, alongside trumpet player Fadev Sanjudo, and UpintotheSilencewith the singer Diana Fuentes. His most recent solo album, JuegosdeAgua,was recorded by FT Music in Mexico. He is supported by the Joaquin Achucarro Foundation, which has named him one of its legacy pianists.

Tito Lanier is a native of Starkville, Mississippi, and currently resides in Laurel, Mississippi. He serves the community as a musician/collaborative pianist and as an advocate for children and their potential for leadership and learning. A visionary leader and licensed practicing educator, Mr. Lanier has contributed over 25 years of service to both private and public education. He has served the educational arena in many capacities, fostering many opportunities for professional growth and relationship building.

Through the consistent research of teaching and learning, many circumstances have open doors for professional acting and onstage musical performances. Mr. Lanier is frequently requested and selected as a motivational speaker, adjudicator and guest clinician for workshops. Currently, he serves the Hattiesburg/Laurel, Mississippi, area as Minister of Music for the historic St. Paul United Methodist Church, St. John Missionary Baptist Church, and as lead pianist for the Soso Seventh Day Adventist Church. He teaches piano and is a freelance collaborator for various genres of music and ensembles.

Mr. Lanier is a servant – dedicated, artistic, passionate, creative and committed to guiding and modeling best pedagogical practices for both students and teachers to succeed, while simultaneously garnering parental engagement through relationships, leadership, teaching and learning. He is a graduate of Jackson State University and William Carey University and holds a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance, a Master’s of Education degree, and specialist’s degree in instructional leadership. Mr. Lanier is pursuing the doctoral degree in education, curriculum and instruction at William Carey University and is completing his dissertation. He is married to Karen, and together they have three lovely children: Madison, Tito Jr. and Lauren.

DR. ROBERT HOPE MCCRARY

1936-2016