Dr. Sarah Daughtrey, mezzo-soprano, serves as Voice Area Coordinator and Associate Professor of Music at NMSU, teaching courses in Vocal Diction, Vocal Pedagogy and Literature, as well as applied voice lessons. Dr. Daughtrey received the DM in Vocal Performance and Literature from the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where she studied with world-renowned soprano Patricia Wise. She earned the BA in Vocal Performance from Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, and pursued graduate studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she was a Knoxville Opera Company Apprentice performing in the Educational Outreach program. With the University of Tennessee Opera Theatre, she performed several roles, including Ottavia in Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea. While at IU, she was privileged to perform as the Student/Singer in a staged version of Argento’s song cycle From the Diary of Virginia Woolf under the direction of acclaimed baritone Håkan Hagegård with the composer in attendance.
An active soloist and recitalist, Dr. Daughtrey’s performances include alto soloist for several works, including Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with the South Bend (In.) Symphony Orchestra, the Mozart Requiem at Lebanon Valley College, and both the Bach St. John Passion, and a concert of vocal works by Heinrich Schütz with Music! Gettysburg, as well as Mendelssohn’s Elijah and Haydn’s Missa Sancti Nicolai with the Lebanon Valley Choral Society. During the summer of 2013, Dr. Daughtrey was accepted into the Mentor Program of SongFest in Los Angeles, where she was privileged to work with composer William Bolcom, singers William Sharp and Amy Burton, among others. She has also served as master class instructor at several colleges around the country, and performed many faculty and community recitals regionally and nationally, including several performances of Schumann’s chamber vocal works, Spanisches Liederspiel and Spanische Liebeslieder; an all-Britten centenary program featuring works for tenor and mezzo-soprano; and several recitals featuring 20th century Brazilian song. Her passion for interdisciplinary performance led to two faculty grants for multimedia programs based around “The Arts of Spain” at the beginning of the 20th century and Paris and its World Expositions.
In her diverse activities as presenter, director and teacher, Prof. Daughtrey’s include the presentation of her doctoral research on the lyric monologue at the ACLA (American Comp. Lit. Assoc.) national conference in Long Beach, California through the Lyrica Society of Word-Music Relations, a lecture recital for the 2010 CMS Eastern Regional Conference on an interdisciplinary approach to text and music in the Argento’s Virgina Woolf cycle, and was featured as a soloist performing new works for voice and piano at the 2013 conference. As stage director, she has presented Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance at Elizabethtown College, von Suppé’s The Fair Galatea for Marshall University Opera Theatre as well as two productions for Bloomington Music Works.
Prof. Daughtrey is a former President of the Allegheny Mountain Chapter of NATS in central Pennsylvania, and has hosted and coordinated the Student Auditions several times, as well as serving as an adjudicator for numerous competitions. She is also the founding President of the IU Chapter of Student NATS, attended the 2006 national Conference in Minneapolis, where she actively promoted Student NATS by creating a new logo and brochure for the organization. She has also served as guest speaker about Student NATS for the Allegheny Mountain chapter of NATS and for Penn State’s Student NATS chapter as well.