Teacher

Luciano Silva is a singer (baritone), voice teacher, choral conductor and researcher. Currently, he is a tenured professor of music (voice) with the Latin American Integration University in Brazil, where he teaches voice technique and many different vocal styles (including jazz, musical theater and Latin-American genres such as bossa nova and tango). He has a total of 15 years of experience as a university voice professor and 25 years as a voice teacher. He holds a doctorate of musical arts from Michigan State University in voice performance, as well as two master’s, one in music (choral conducting) and another one in arts (musicology), from the same university. In addition, he holds a baccalaureate in music (voice) from São Paulo State University and a baccalaureate in pharmacy and biochemistry from the University of São Paulo. He has completed post-doctoral researches at the University of Coimbra, investigating the fado voice, and the São Paulo State University, where he investigated belt technique. Dr. Silva has a firm knowledge of voice science, having completed courses such as “Integrated Training in Voice” (under Dr. Mara Behlau), “The Science of the Singing Voice” (under Dr. Johan Sundberg) and “ProVox” (under Dr. Filipa Lã).

His former voice teachers include Patricia Green, Richard Fracker, and Martha Herr. He also has sung in many masterclasses under teachers such as Dominique Moady, Isabelle Ganz, Brian McIntosh, James Westman and Tamás Salgó. He also attended programs with the Tafelmusik Choir in Toronto and the Bachakademie Stuttgart both in Poland and Toronto.

Dr. Silva has been presenting papers and research in some of the most important conferences in voice, such as PAVA 2021, PEVoC 2019, EVTA Austria 2019, ICVT 2017, Music and Imagined Communities 2014, the College Music Society Great Lakes Chapter Conference, the CMS National Conference, ACDA Michigan, ANPPOM, SEFIM, VOX and Performa, among others. Recently, he presented lectures and taught masterclasses at the University of Coimbra (2020), Mozarteum University in Salzburg (2019, 2018), the University of Bremen (2017), the Federal University of Goiás (2020) and the Amazonas State University (2020). Formerly an assistant professor of voice with the University of Campinas and an instructor of voice with Michigan State University and Alma College, for the past few years he has been invited to teach at music festivals such as the Paraná Opera Festival, the Águas de São Pedro Singing Festival, the Cascavel Music Festival and the Santa Maria Federal University Music Festival. Notwithstanding, Dr. Silva is the official translator to Brazilian Portuguese of The Structure of Singing, the seminal work by the great Richard Miller, published in 2019.

Dr. Silva has started to sing professionally more than 30 years ago singing rock and bossa nova in bars in his native city of São Paulo, later including Latin and North-American jazz. Nevertheless, he has performed genres as diverse as opera, lied, mélodie, art song, musical theater, and Native-Brazilian music.

Moreover, Dr. Silva has extensive choral and vocal ensemble experience, which started 30 years ago with the vocal group Beijo. He also sang for six years with the São Paulo Symphony Chorus. He was the creator and director of the UNILA Choral Project (currently the coordinator), and the director of the music workshops and the Choral and Vocal departments of the City of Diadema Music School. In Michigan, Dr. Silva has directed the University Baptist Church Choir and the MSU Jazz Choir. In Toronto, he directed the Rainbow Voices, the Scarborough Bel Canto Choir, and sang with the Elmer Iseler Singers and the Amadeus Choir.