Faculty Biography

Robert Strauss, Lecturer


Contact:
(585) 389-2700
StraussRobert@msn.com


Departmental Responsibilities:
Applied Voice for Primaries and Secondaries
Opera Workshop Stage Director
Intro to Opera


Education:
West Virginia University, DMA
University of North Carolina, Greensboro, MM
SUNY at Fredonia, BM


Biography:
Robert Strauss has been praised for his sensitive, intelligent interpretation, his attention to musical and textual nuance, and his versatile tenor voice. Since coming to Nazareth College in 2004, Strauss has become increasingly in demand as a singer, as a teacher, and as a stage director. An avid recitalist, he has presented the programs Seasons in Song and The Recital That Dare Not Speak Its Name (a program featuring the music of homosexual composers) with Eastman School of Music faculty member Benton Hess as pianist. The recital, Inner Voices, featuring music for tenor and mezzo-soprano voices, premiered in North Carolina in 2007. More recently, the revue Finding A Way Back, including music from the contemporary musical theatre repertoire, was performed at Nazareth College, also featuring area singer Chandra Downs and Don Kot, director of the music theatre program at Nazareth. Strauss also regularly performs works written for the concert stage, most recently Britten’s St. Nicolas with the Susquehanna Valley Chorale, and Haydn’s The Creation with the Finger Lakes Chorale, having also sung the standard oratorio repertoire including Messiah and Mozart’s Requiem, and, under the baton of faculty emeritus Dr. Thomas McGary, Bach’s Coffee Cantata.

Recent operatic ventures for the tenor include Pedrillo in Die Entführung Aus Dem Serail, Kaspar in Amahl and the Night Visitors, and Mr. Splinters in The Tender Land, all with Mercury Opera Rochester. He will sing the role of Spoletta in Tosca with them this winter. Other favorite opera roles include Prologue/Peter Quint (Turn of the Screw), Jack Point (Yeomen of the Guard), Alfred in Die Fledermaus, and Federico in L’amico Fritz (performed as part of the Centri Studi Italiani Opera Festival). No stranger to the musical theatre repertoire, Strauss recently learned to play accordion for Rochester Children’s Theatre’s production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, for which he was also Simeon and the Butler. He has also appeared as Archibald Craven in The Secret Garden, Tony in West Side Story, and Anthony Hope in Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. As comfortable behind the production table as he is in front of it, Dr. Strauss has served as Assistant Stage Director for Mercury Opera Rochester’s production of Il barbiere di Siviglia, as Production Stage Manager for Suor Angelica, and as Stage Director for recent productions of Seussical, The Musical, Godspell! and for the inaugural tour of Amahl and the Night Visitors for Mercury Opera Rochester.

Dr. Strauss also maintains an active profile as a voice teacher and pedagogue. Having studied vocal pedagogy with the late William McIver, he has served on the voice faculties of Guilford College (NC), Radford University (VA), and Washington & Jefferson College (PA). He is also sought after in the area to serve as a sabbatical replacement, having done so for the Fredonia School of Music and for the University at Buffalo. He is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing, and served on the board of directors for the Virginia State Chapter. His students regularly win local and regional competitions, win roles in semi-professional and professional opera and musical theatre producing companies, and are awarded places in apprenticeship programs.