Welcome To Dr. Sandra Boysen's Home Page!
Soprano
Sandra Boysen continues to delight audiences in opera and concert both
nationally and internationally. She currently serves on the voice faculty at
the Hochstein School of Music & Dance, in
Rochester, New York, and formerly served on the voice faculty at Nazareth College
in Rochester.
She has performed leading roles in U.S. opera houses, sung Tagalog folk songs throughout the Philippines, jammed with jazz musicians in concert, and entertained in a famed New York City cabaret, naming just a few of her many performance venues.
In 2007, she sang the world premiere of American composer Paul Stuart's newest song cycle, How Did I Get So Old?, with poetry by Boston College's Elizabeth Kirschner, in Rochester, NY; the work was written specifically to showcase Sandra's vocal abilities and is available on compact disc from the composer. In 2003, she sang in the New York premiere of the Grammy-nominated children's musical, The Journey of Sir Douglas Fir, with the author/composer in attendance, with orchestra under the direction of Nancy Strelau. The work had its world premiere in Atlanta and had been telecast over PBS.
Another of her world premiere performances was with the Equinox Symphony Orchestra in Paul Stuart's The Sisters of Manzanar, a one-act opera which addresses the shame experienced by Japanese Americans in U.S. internment camps after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The composer wrote one of the two leading roles specifically for Sandra's voice. The work was enthusiastically received at its premiere in October 2002 with the Equinox Symphony Orchestra, and at a second performance in early 2003 at Kodak's Theatre on the Ridge in Rochester.
This past year's performances included:
January,
2008: performed in a jazz masterclass under the direction
of recording artist Hanna
Richardson at the Hochstein School of Music, with jazz pianist
Richard Delaney.
February, 2008: presented faculty
recital at Nazareth College in collaboration with pianist Alla Kuznetsov,
featuring works by Grieg, Steinberg, Stuart, and selections from French
cabaret favorites.
March, 2008: soloist for performance of Scarlatti’s Cantata
Pastorale and Vaughan Williams’ Merciless Beauty with
instrumental chamber ensemble for the Hochstein School’s Spotlight on Faculty concert
series with violinists Katie Worley and Ruth Marie Ballance, pianist Doleen
Hood and others .
June, 2008: presented program
of selections from musicals composed since 2000 with pianist Yasuko
Kelly for
the Morning Musicale in Rochester, NY.
September, 2008: performed an
evening of jazz vocal standards with trombonist Evan Dobbins and
pianist John
Nyerges at the Locust Hill Country Club in Rochester, NY.
December, 2008: soprano soloist for Handel's Messiah at
Messiah Lutheran Church, with organist James E. Bobb and
director
Dr. Willie LaFavor, in Rochester, NY.
A Little
History...
Dr. Boysen's operatic roles
include the Countess
in The Marriage of Figaro, Donna Elvira in Don
Giovanni, Mimi in La Boheme and Micaela in Carmen. She sang
the role of the Mother
in South Georgia Opera's first touring production of Amahl and the Night
Visitors, and made her operatic debut as Despina in Pensacola Opera's first
production of Cosi fan tutte. She also appeared as the female soldier
Bubikopf in Opera Rochester's 2001 production of Viktor Ullman's wrenching
Holocaust opera, Der Kaiser von Atlantis. She has appeared in numerous
performances of Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, and has had success in a wide variety of musical
theatre as well, appearing as Anna in The King and I, the Mother Abbess
in The Sound of Music , Amalia in She
Loves Me, Marian
in The Music Man, Audrey in Little Shop of Horrors, and as the
title role in Evita
, among others. In these and other roles, she sang
under the direction of Anton Guadagno, Benton Hess, Roger Cantrell, Stefan Minde,
Melvin Strauss, Timothy Hoekman and Phillip Spurgeon, to name
a few.
In August 2001, Sandra made her Manhattan cabaret debut at Don't Tell Mama, one of the famed cabarets on West 46th Street, presenting selections from classic Broadway musicals to light opera. In September 2001, she appeared as soprano soloist at the Eastman Theatre in Mozart's Requiem, organized in record time by the Eastman School of Music's Dr. William Weinert and Carol Webber, as a fundraiser for the victims of the World Trade Center disaster.
Prizes and honors include an Artist-Fellowship with the Bach Aria Institute at SUNY-Stony Brook, directed by the renowned flutist and Baroque music specialist Samuel Baron. Vocal competition wins include Palm Beach Opera's annual competition, the Mobile Opera Rose-Palmai Tenser Awards, and the Pensacola Community Concerts Scholarship Competition. In the spring of 2000, she spent five weeks as Goodwill Ambassador and Group Study Exchange Team member to the Philippines, sponsored by the Rotary International Foundation, interacting with Filipino singers and voice teachers and making musical presentations to many of that country's Rotary Clubs as part of her duties. She was also honored by the National Association of Teachers of Singing as the recipient of one of twelve appointments for their 2000 Internship Program, held at Ithaca College in upstate New York.
Sandra's concert performances include all of J.S. Bach's oratorio works and many of the cantatas, Mendelssohn's Elijah and St. Paul, Honegger's King David, and the Requiems of Verdi, Mozart, Brahms, Faure, and Rutter. She also appeared in Bruckner's Te Deum under the direction of Dr. Andre Thomas with the Florida State University Symphony Orchestra, and in Mahler's Resurrection Symphony finale with the Rochester Oratorio Society, directed by Roger Wilhelm. She appeared as guest artist in recital at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey, presented recitals throughout New York, Florida, Georgia and Alabama, and filled two short-term guest artist residencies at Emporia State University in Kansas, directed by music department chair and pianist Dr. Marie Miller.
She has made frequent appearances as guest artist with the Eastman School of Music, the Publick Musick, the Rochester Oratorio Society, the Genesee Valley Orchestra & Chorus, Finger Lakes Symphony Orchestra, Christ Episcopal Concerts and the Christ Church Compline Concert Series, among others, under the direction of William Weinert, Paul Frolick and others. She also appears annually as soloist on the "Live From Hochstein" broadcast concerts, which are aired weekly during the academic year over WXXI Classical 91.5 FM, a PBS affiliate.
In addition to concert performances, she was soloist and section leader at Christ Episcopal Church in Pittsford, New York, for eight years and has been soprano section at Rochester's Temple B'rith Kodesh for High Holy Days for ten years. She has taught for twenty-five years, and her students are frequent winners of vocal competitions and are involved in opera, folksong, Broadway and everything in between. Former students include a singer/songwriter now recording and performing in Nashville and hosting her own show on the Nashville Network. Another student went on to earn his doctoral degree and now has a successful teaching career in Florida, and yet another student recently sang for Renee Fleming in one of her rare masterclasses, and was selected for the Spoleto Festival's 2004 summer program in Italy, to name only a few.
Dr. Boysen received her D.M. and M.M. degrees in Voice Performance from the Florida State University College of Music under the direction of Professor Roy Delp. She previously studied with Yvonne Ciannella and Patricia Anderson, and has coached with Gerard Souzay, Samuel Sanders, Sally Sanford, Carol Webber, Benton Hess, D'Anna Fortunato and Timothy Hoekman. She received her B.A. in Music/Voice from Pensacola Christian College studying with Patricia Anderson.
She is married to filmmaker, author and educator Charles Boyd, whose documentary films have aired frequently on Nova, The American Experience, and National Geographic Explorer, to name a few. She is proud to note that after spending ten months hospitalized in 2006, Charlie successfully had a heart transplant and is now celebrating two-and-a-half years with his new heart. They are the proud guardians of four cockatiels, two pet chickens, and a little black cat (named Timmy) who has affectionately taken over their home. A strong believer in having a life outside of singing, she and Charlie are avid gardeners, canoe enthusiasts, woodworkers, readers, and aficionados of foreign films and fine antiques. They also have a particular fondness for British sports cars of the 1960's and first-generation Mazda Miatas, feline and equestrian art, antique clocks, and the fantastic gourmet cooking of her husband.
"My advice to singers is to forget about
marrying a good accompanist;
true happiness is found only in marrying a great chef!"
View Dr. Boysen's performance & teaching resume
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Dr. Boysen has included a link to several recital programs, based on successful performances given by her students. These are intended only to inspire singers as they search for possible program ideas.
Reviews of her performances include:
Rochester
(NY) Democrat & Chronicle: (Rochester
Oratorio Society Messiah performances)
"Along with the 190-voice chorus and 19-member orchestra says [Roger]
Wilhelm, this weekend's vocal soloists are 'the strongest quartet we have had,'
made up of singers with established careers in opera and oratorio: soprano
Sandra Boysen..."
Palm Beach (FL) Daily News : (Gilbert & Sullivan Light Opera
Company)
"The singers were led by soprano Sandra Boysen, who has the high, fresh,
accurate voice suited to this kind of singing."
Tallahassee (FL) Democrat : "Sandra Boysen displayed the
vocal maturity needed to play the Countess (Le Nozze di Figaro). Her
aria 'Porgi Amor' was one of the highlights of the evening."
Thomasville (GA) Times-Enterprise : (South Georgia Opera's production of
Amahl and the Night Visitors ) "Playing Amahl's mother was soprano
Sandra Boysen, whose seasoned talents and gifted voice captivated the audience
with its richness and clarity of tone."
Dr. Boysen welcomes your contact and comments; e-mail her at sboysen@frontiernet.net.