About Mary Saunders
Mary Saunders is a Cum Laude/Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Mount Holyoke College with a Master's degree from Middlebury College and the Sorbonne, Paris. While in Paris, she studied with Pierre Bernac at the Ecole Normale de Musique. She is currently Associate Professor of Music, Head of Voice Instruction for the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre at Penn State University. Previously she was on on the BFA Musical Theatre faculty at the Hartt School of Music in Hartford, Connecticut. An active performer with Broadway, off-Broadway, film and television credits, Ms. Saunders has recently concentrated on the creation and performance of one-woman cabaret shows, the first of which, Stop, Time, played to sell-out houses in New York City. In addition to her university teaching, she maintains a studio in Manhattan for professional performers. In this and recent seasons her students could be seen on Broadway in The Drowsy Chaperone, Wicked, Little Shop of Horrors, Urinetown, Hairspray, The Producers, Kiss Me Kate, Seussical, The Musical, Cabaret, Follies, 42nd Street, Rent, Boys From Syracuse, Mamma Mia, The 29th Annual Putnam Valley Spelling Bee, Gypsy, In The Heights, A Tale of Two Cities, Promises, Promises, Hair and West Side Story.
Mary is frequently invited to present her workshop seminar Bel Canto/Can Belto for convocations of singers and teachers of singing in the U.S. and Europe. In recent years she has presented workshops and master classes for the National Association of Teachers of Singing in NYC, San Diego, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Boston, Providence, Albuquerque, Dallas-Fort Worth, New Orleans, and for the National Opera Association in Washington DC. She has been on the voice faculty of the Intermezzo Young Artists Program in Brugge, Belgium, and has presented internationally for the Voice Foundation, The International Congress of Voice Teachers in Vancouver, BC, the International Sweet Adelines Educational Symposium, and the International Congress "Broadway an der Ruhr" in Dortmund, Germany. She has taught workshops at Ithaca College, Berklee School of Music, Illinois Wesleyan, San Diego State, American University, California State-Fullerton, Wheaton College, Ouachita Baptist University, the University of Central Oklahoma, Loyola College in Baltimore, The Longy School of Music and The New School for Music in Cambridge, MA and Emerson College.
Mary offers, with her Penn State colleagues, a summer workshop Bel Canto/Can Belto : Learning to Teach and Sing for Musical Theatre on the University Park campus. In addition, she is currently developing an MFA in Musical Theatre Voice Pedagogy at Penn State. Her DVD tutorial Bel Canto/Can Belto: Teaching Women to Sing Musical Theatre, was released in November, 2007.
Mary was recently inducted into the prestigious American Academy of Teachers of Singing in New York City.
photo by Bill Wallace