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B I O G R A P H Y

Michael Chipman joined the adjunct voice faculty of the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music as a sabbatical replacement for Rod Gilfry in 2022. He joined the voice faculty of The Colburn School for the Performing Arts in Los Angeles in November of 2017. Mr. Chipman holds an Arist Diploma in Vocal Performance from Oberlin College Conservatory where he studied with Richard Miller. He also holds a Master’s Degree in Vocal Performance from the University of Utah and a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in English Literature from Utah State University. He is the author of Sing Your Way Through College: Ten Steps To Help Turn Your Talent Into A Scholarship and is the co-author with W. Stephen Smith of The Naked Voice: A Wholistic Approach to Singing, published by Oxford University Press in 2007.

From 2008–2018 Mr. Chipman was an assistant professor and head of the voice program at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. His students have had great success, winning many competitions including the District Metropolitan National Council Auditions, National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Competitions, and the Utah Symphony Salute to Youth, among others. His students have also won scholarships for undergraduate and graduate study at top-ranked conservatories and music schools, including Oberlin Conservatory, Eastman School of Music, Manhattan School of Music, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, the San Francisco Conservatory, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music, USC Thornton School of Music, University of Houston Moores School of Music, Arizona State University, University of Minnesota, and the University of Utah.

Mr. Chipman’s performance interests range from art song to Baroque music, to musical theatre to contemporary opera. He recently sang Schubert’s masterpiece, Winterreise with pianist Kimi Kawashima on the NOVA Chamber Music Series, recorded the role of Roderick Usher in Gordon Getty’s new opera Usher House with the San Francisco Opera Orchestra and sang the baritone solo in Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem with Utah Chamber Artists. In November 2005, he made his Carnegie Hall debut singing the baritone solo in Haydn’s Mass in Time of War with the New England Symphonic Ensemble. He has performed twice as a soloist at Carnegie Hall and performs regularly with the Utah Opera, Utah Symphony, Utah Chamber Artists, Intermezzo Chamber Music, and NOVA Chamber Music Series.

Mr. Chipman has sung with Hawaii Opera Theatre, Cincinnati Opera, Lyric Opera Cleveland, Utah Opera, Lyric Opera of New York, Oberlin Opera Theater, Utah Festival Opera, and the Brevard Music Festival Opera. He has performed as a soloist with the Utah Symphony, Vancouver Symphony, Honolulu Symphony, National Chamber Orchestra, Oberlin Musical Union, and on seven international television and radio broadcasts with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He was a regional finalist in the 2001 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and made his New York operatic debut in 2002–2003 performing the roles of Melchior in Amahl and the Night Visitors and Papageno in Die Zauberflöte with Lyric Opera of New York.

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