LISA SEEGMILLER STUDIOS
Lisa Seegmiller Studios is Southern Utah’s premiere private vocal studio, specializing in teaching world-class technique from the world’s finest conservatories. Studio Founder, Lisa Hopkins Seegmiller, is America’s only Tony Award-winning, Grammy Award-nominated, Ivy League-trained voice teacher. She specializes in "building voices from scratch," while polishing even the most refined techniques. Lisa teaches all age groups successfully, from young children to senior citizens, beginners to professionals.
Lisa opened her first studio at Yale University nearly twenty years ago and has since opened studios in New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, DC, before finally opening her acclaimed St. George, Utah Studio in 2010. Since then, Lisa’s students and studio alumni have succeeded internationally, nationally, and locally, competing, placing, and winning in such esteemed competitions as the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Classical Singer Competition, and America's Got Talent.
Locally, Lisa's students are routinely cast in lead and supporting roles at venues including the esteemed Tuacahn Amphitheater, Utah Opera, Utah Lyric Opera, St. George Opera, St. George Musical Theater, Brigham’s Playhouse, the Hurricane Valley Theatrical Company, and The Stage Door. Her young students are regularly cast as leads in their middle school and high school productions and selected to be part of honors and elite choirs and selective performance groups like Trilogy at Pine View High and Vista Rising Stars at Vista Charter School.
Lisa has helped prepare her students for acceptance into Utah’s finest summer programs, including the Utah Vocal Arts Academy, Utah Conservatory of the Performing Arts, and ReMix Vocal Academy, as well as international festivals such as Si Parla, Si Canta in Urbania, Italy, and Opera Viva! in Verona, Italy.
Lisa's students and alumni have been awarded hundreds of thousands of dollars in scholarships to attend conservatories and universities on the east and west coasts, including the world-renowned Curtis Institute of Music, the Manhattan School of Music, Peabody Conservatory, Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Ithaca College/Cornell University, Shenandoah Conservatory, James Madison University, Westminster College, Brigham Young University, Southern Utah University, Utah Valley University, and Dixie State University, and have been soloists with the Southwest Symphony, winners of the Washington City, Hurricane City, and Santa Clara City pageants, competitors in the Miss Utah, Miss Nevada, and Miss America Pageants, winners of Dixie’s Got Talent, winners of St. George's Finest Talent Competition, St. George Idol, Hurricane Idol, Hawk Idol, and performers of the National Anthem in the historic Dixie Sun Bowl, the Tuacahn Amphitheater, and many other venues in and out of town.
From her beautiful St. George home studio, full of inspiring memorabilia from her life on Broadway and beyond, Lisa teaches an amalgamation of the world-class vocal techniques she learned under the tuteledge of legendary voice teachers and mentors over the course of the past 25 years. This includes the technique of Lisa's first voice teachers, soprano JoAnn Ottley of Salt Lake City, Utah, vocal coach and wife of the former director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, with whom Lisa studied in high school, and the late mezzo-soprano Ariel Bybee of the Metropolitan Opera, with whom Lisa studied during her freshman year at Yale University.
During her sophomore year at Yale, Lisa began studying with legendary voice teacher, Marlena Malas, of The Juilliard School, The Curtis Institute of Music, The Manhattan School of Music, and the Chautauqua Voice Institute. Lisa studied with Marlena for the duration of her sophomore, junior, and senior years at Yale University, and then further at the Manhattan School of Music, where she received her Masters of Music in Vocal Performance. Marlena encouraged Lisa to audition for Hollywood film director Baz Luhrmann's production of Puccini's opera, La Bohème on Broadway at this time, for which Lisa was cast in the lead female role of Mimì and awarded a special Tony Honor for Excellence in the Theater.
Upon graduation from the Manhattan School of Music, Lisa began studying with Patricia McCaffrey, one of the world’s most sought-after vocal technicians, currently teaching on the voice faculties of The Curtis Institute of Music, Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music, LidalNorth in Oslo, Norway, Berlin Staatsoper Studio, and the New Israeli Opera Meitar Opera Studio. Lisa acknowledges these formidable women and singers with deep gratitude for teaching her how to sing and feels strongly about leaving their remarkable technical legacies with the talented youth of the American Southwest and beyond.
