Professor, Music
Dawn Padula, mezzo-soprano, is a versatile performer of opera, oratorio, musical theatre, jazz, and classical concert repertoire. Opera roles include Carmen in Carmen, Azucena in Il Trovatore, Lady Jane in Patience (2018 Gregory Awards People’s Choice Nominee), Lady Blanche in Princess Ida, Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, The Third Lady in The Magic Flute, the Witch in Hansel and Gretel, Maddalena in Rigoletto, Isabella in L’Italiana in Algeri, Erika in Vanessa, and the Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas. During the pandemic, she recorded the roles of Zita in Gianni Schicchi and Olga Olsen in Street Scene with the Social Distance Opera (part of BARN Opera). Recent operatic engagements included the roles of Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance (Seattle Gilbert & Sullivan Society – 2019 Broadway World Seattle Best Performer in a Musical Nominee), Dame Quickly in Falstaff (Puget Sound Concert Opera), Maguelone in Cendrillon (Puget Sound Concert Opera), Dryade in Ariadne auf Naxos (Vashon Opera), Armelinde in Cendrillon (Puget Sound Concert Opera) and Maddalena in Rigoletto (Vashon Opera). Upcoming engagements include portraying the title role in Carmen (Bellevue Opera) and the role of Fidalma in Cimarosa’s Il Matrimonio Segreto (Puget Sound Concert Opera). In the Pacific Northwest, she has performed as a principal artist with Seattle Gilbert & Sullivan Society, Tacoma Opera, Vashon Opera, Puget Sound Concert Opera, Olympia Opera Theater, Kitsap Opera, Concert Opera of Seattle, Bellevue Opera, and Opera Pacifica. She is also a member of the Seattle Opera Chorus. A former resident of Texas, Padula has also performed with Houston Grand Opera, Opera in the Heights (Houston), The Living Opera (Garland), and Amarillo Opera.
Notable concert and oratorio work includes performing as the mezzo-soprano soloist in Ethel Smyth’s Mass in D with Seattle Pro Musica, as a soloist in Gabriel Faure’s Requiem with Northwest Repertory Singers, as a soloist in the concert version of West Side Story with Symphony Tacoma, as the mezzo-soprano soloist in Penderecki’s Credo with the Houston Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Jahja Ling, and touring to Varna and Sofia, Bulgaria as the mezzo-soprano soloist in Mozart’s Requiem with members of the Adelphian Concert Choir, the Portland Symphonic Choir, the Tucson Masterworks Chorale, the West Liberty University Singers, the West Liberty College Community Chorus, and the Pazardzhik Symphony. In the Pacific Northwest, she has also performed as a soloist with the Tacoma Concert Band, the Oregon Symphony, the Portland Symphonic Choir, the Seattle Bach Choir, the Second City Chamber series, the Tacoma Bach Festival, the Classical Tuesdays in Old Town Tacoma Concert Series, and the Puget Sound School of Music’s Organ at Noon, Faculty Artist, and Jacobsen series’. Internationally, she has performed on the Interharmony International Music Festival’s Italian summer concert series, and at the Song in the City London recital series. Her classical solo album, Gracious Moonlight, is available on streaming platforms.
Her musical theatre roles include paying tribute to Broadway celebrities in Forbidden Broadway’s Greatest Hits, Jack’s Mother in Sondheim’s Into the Woods, Domina in Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Woman 3 in the Kander and Ebb revue, And the World Goes ’Round. She has also performed as a jazz vocalist in venues such as Pacific Lutheran University’s Jazz Under the Stars Series and the Puget Sound School of Music Jacobsen Series.
Dr. Padula’s original research on training the tenor and baritone singing voice from the mezzo-soprano voice teacher perspective has been presented at the International Voice Foundation Symposium, at the National Association of Teachers of Singing National Conference, and at the Art and Science of the Performing Voice Symposium. Dr. Padula is Professor of Voice and Director of Vocal Studies at the University of Puget Sound School of Music, where she is the Chair of the Vocal Studies Area, directs the Opera Theater, and co-directs the newly-established Songwriting major. In 2020, Dr. Padula was honored to receive Puget Sound’s Tom A. Davis Teaching Award. She holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts from the University of Houston Moores School of Music with a minor concentration in vocal pedagogy and voice science, a Masters of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, and both a Bachelor of Music degree in vocal performance and a Bachelor of Arts degree in media communications from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX.