Joseph Perniciaro, tenor

Joseph Perniciaro, tenor, has appeared on concert stages nationally and internationally in opera, oratorio and recital where he has been lauded for his “… superb vocal skills as well as formidable dramatic talent and a gift for languages.” Recent performances include recitals at Stockholm, Sweden’s Royal College of Music and at the Centro Cultural Borges in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is an advocate of 20 th -century American song and through his recital work was selected a state winner and regional finalist in the National Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Award Competition. He has worked closely with prolific American composer Richard Faith in both art song and opera while his research on American composer Ross Lee Finney has been presented in lecture-recitals at international and regional conferences sponsored by the College Music Society and the National Association of Teachers of Singing.

Dr. Perniciaro is also a respected teacher and pedagogue whose students are frequent winners, finalists, and semi-finalists in competitions sponsored by the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), at both the national and regional levels, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the Coeur d’Alene Symphony, the Hays Symphony Young Artist Competition, the Wichita Symphony NAFTZGER Young Artist Competition, and Federated Music Club. His students have also been accepted to international and national summer programs including Seagle Music Colony, Ashville Lyric Opera, Franco American Vocal Academy in France, Opera in the Ozarks, the Johanna Meier Summer Opera Institute, University of Miami in Salzburg, Austria, Oberlin in Italy, and the Cedar Rapids Opera Young Artist Program. Students have gone on to further study at Manhattan School of Music, University of North Texas, Westminster Choir College (Ryder University), Boston University, AMDA (American Musical and Dramatic Academy), Oklahoma City University, and the University of Kansas. Dr. Perniciaro is in demand as a masterclass clinician and adjudicator, most recently for the national NATS student auditions. In July 2016, he was the featured voice teacher and masterclass clinician with the Taiwan Youth Festival Chorus. Dr. Perniciaro is an Associate Professor of Voice and Director of Opera at Fort Hays State University, teaching studio voice, vocal pedagogy, song literature and stage directing opera.  He was nominated for the GRAMMY™ Music Educator Award, twice nominated for the prestigious Pilot Award for Teaching Excellence, Fort Hays State’s highest honor awarded to faculty for teaching, and was chosen by the Board of Directors of the National Association of Teachers of Singing and the NATS Foundation as an Emerging Leaders Award winner. He is a member of Pi Kappa Lambda, national honorary music society, is currently Vice-President of the Kansas NATS (National Association of Teachers Singing) Chapter.