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Jo Ella Todd

Jo Ella Todd Professor, Voice
MM, New England Conservatory
office: 212 Fine Arts Building
phone: 573-882-9476
fax: 573-884-7444
email: ToddJE@missouri.edu
mailing address: 140 Fine Arts Building, Columbia, MO 65211

Professor Todd received a bachelor's degree in music education from Arkansas State University and a master of music degree in voice from the New England Conservatory of Music. Further musical studies followed at Harvard University and the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. Awards and grants include a Fulbright Scholarship to study voice in Italy and a National Opera Institute special study grant.

Following an engagement with the Metropolitan Opera Studio in New York, Professor Todd moved to Europe, where she sang nearly fifty operatic roles with the Mainz, Salzburg, and Munich operas. Other solo engagements have taken her to opera houses and concert halls in cities around the world, including performances in New York, Boston, Vienna, Tokyo, Paris, Prague, Verona, and at the Salzburg International Music Festival. After winning the International Vocal Competition in Antwerp, Belgium, she went on to become a finalist in the Belvedere International Vocal Competition in Vienna, Austria. Professor Todd was a frequent soloist on Austrian and Bavarian national radios, as well as appearing as a soloist on a number of European television broadcasts.

While teaching at Barry University and the New World School of the Arts in Miami, Professor Todd co-founded and was a director of the Performing Arts Institute, which develops and promotes young artists. The Hartt School of Music, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and New England Conservatory of Music are among the musical institutions that have presented Professor Todd in master classes. Professor Todd is a former Governor for the Central Region of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, a recipient of the Blue Chalk Teaching Award, and a Mizzou 39 Teaching Mentor. Her students consistently win or place in student and young artist competitions and enjoy acceptance to competitive graduate schools and to regional and apprentice opera programs. Professor Todd teaches voice and vocal repertoire at the University of Missouri while maintaining a busy schedule as adjudicator, masterclass teacher, and singer.