Cheri Anne Montgomery

Cheri Montgomery is a member of the voice faculty at the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University. She is the author of 12 titles on the topics of voice and diction. The Lyric Diction Workbook Series includes six titles for English, Italian, German, French, Latin, and advanced French lyric diction courses. The IPA Handbook for Singers, Phonetic Readings for Lyric Diction, and Phonetic Transcription for Lyric Diction provide resources for the abbreviated diction study. Diction for Singers and The Singer’s Daily Practice Journal, volumes I and II provide workbooks for the private voice studio. An abbreviated version of the pedagogy within is published in the Journal of Singing: The Voice and Diction Connection, A Diction Instructor’s Approach to Voice Pedagogy (Jan./Feb. 2018).

The Journal of Singing additionally published Montgomery's guidelines for the lyric diction course in The Dynamic Diction Classroom (Sept./Oct. 2011). She is co-author of Exploring Art Song Lyrics published by Oxford University Press. In her work with Oxford, she provided pronunciation and phonetic symbols for more than 750 Italian, German, and French art songs. Her method of transcription and choice of phonetic symbols are published in the appendix. Book reviews and links to her articles are available at www.stmpublishers.com.

Montgomery was a mentor voice teacher and featured presenter for the National Association of Teachers of Singing 2019 Summer Workshop at St. Olaf College. She offers postgraduate instruction to voice teachers, diction instructors, and coaches in her Lyric Diction Workshop held each summer at the Jean and Alexander Heard Libraries at Vanderbilt University.

Performance credits include the operatic roles of Gilda (Rigoletto) and the Shepherd Boy (Tosca) with the Nashville Opera. Oratorio engagements include her appearances with the Knoxville and Nashville Symphonies as soprano soloist for the Messiah. She was awarded full scholarships for graduate study at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville through the Grace Moore Graduate Scholarship and the Phi Mu Alpha Scholarship. She was a first-place winner of regional NATS auditions as a senior at UTK. While in school, she was employed as a classical radio announcer for WUOT, Knoxville.