Living Women: Music by Contemporary Women

Soprano Alison Wahl and pianist Laura Amoriello present music by living women composers, including Errollyn Wallen, Alison Wahl, Stacy Garrop, Valerie Capers, Alex Temple, Jennifer Higdon, and Rosephanye Powell.

Soprano Alison Wahl has been praised for her “appealing,” “bright, vibrant soprano” (Chicago Tribune). She has appeared as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony, the Boston Pops, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Eastman Summer Chorale, the Elmhurst Symphony Orchestra, the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chamber Music series, the Chicago Arts Orchestra, and the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago. She created the roles of Clori in Haymarket Opera’s Clori, Tirsi, e Fileno and Pernille in VOX3’s Maskarade, and recently appeared as Pamina in Opera for the Young’s The Magic Flute, Yum-Yum in The Mikado with Off-Monroe Players, and Elsie Maynard in Yeomen of the Guard with the Summer Savoyards.

Alison was a 2015 vocal fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center and a 2012 young artist at the Steans Music Institute at the Ravinia Festival. She was awarded an Encouragement Award from the Metropolitan Opera’s 2012 National Competition. She has won the 2012 Northwestern University Concerto Competition, the 2011 Empire State Collegiate Competition, and the 2011 Chicago Council Student Auditions (NATS). In 2011, she was a soloist at the Kennedy Center Conservatory Project in Washington, D.C., and a studio artist with Opera North in 2010. A recipient of the Edward Poole Lay Fellowship, she holds a doctorate of musical arts and a master’s degree with honors from Northwestern University. In 2018 she joined the faculty of Ithaca College as an Assistant Professor of Voice.

Laura Amoriello is a pianist, pedagogy specialist, and mindfulness instructor. She teaches secondary piano lessons and classes, piano pedagogy, and electives in mindfulness and meditation. Fascinated by the learning process as well as the mind-body connection, Laura teaches students to improve their ease of movement at the instrument, calm their thoughts, and focus their minds.

Prior to joining the Ithaca College faculty, Laura served on the faculties of Westminster Choir College and The College of New Jersey. She is a member of the Wellness Committee for the National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy and has written for The Piano Magazine, Piano Pedagogy Forum, and the Music Teachers National Association e-Journal. Laura is an Associate Teacher of the Art of Practicing Institute, where she continues to study piano and pedagogy with Madeline Bruser. She has directed teaching studios in three states and has taught students ages 3 to 67 privately and in groups; her students have been admitted to the Eastman School of Music and Berklee College of Music. With a keen interest in underrepresented composers, Laura regularly teaches and performs works by Capers, Price, Smith, Okoye, and Suesse.