Roosevelt University Masterclass

Named one of the "Best of Chicago" (Chicago Magazine, 2008) Rebecca Simone Schorsch instructs singers who work across classical music, musical theater, and commercial styles. Her students sing in opera houses, young artist programs, with symphonies and summer festivals, perform on and off-Broadway, on London's West End, Chicago and regional stages, on national tours, and in film, television and the recording industry. A highly sought-after teacher in both classical and theatrical circles, Rebecca is known for her technical, artistic, and professional mentorship skills, as well as her sense of what is needed to be a successful 21st century performing artist. Her students have gone on to rich lives in music as full-time performers, teachers in elementary, high school, and university music classrooms, private voice instructors, stars of feature films and television series, arts administrators, entertainment lawyers, music therapists, liturgical music directors, performers at White House State Dinners, and Doctoral candidates in both performance and academic subjects.

In addition to teaching on both the Classical and Musical Theatre faculties at Roosevelt University, Ms. Schorsch also taught and directed for the holistic summer program, the Up North Vocal Institute for eight seasons. She is a frequent lecturer and presenter and has taught extensively across the U.S. and the U.K. at institutions such as University of Colorado-Boulder, Wheaton College, University of Chicago, Southern Methodist University, Loyola University, the Source Song Festival, the Royal College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, Wales and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.  Her research on the Disney vocal style was published in American Music' s edition on 'Music and Sound in Disney Media'.

Keanon Kyles, praised by CNN for his “beautiful technique” was raised in Chicago where he received his degree in music from Chicago’s Columbia College. He made his opera debut as Colline in Puccini's “La Boheme” in North Chicago. Conducted by Metropolitan Opera’s Maestro David Jackson, he made his Italy debut in Trento as Betto in Gianni Schicchi and Peter in Hansel and Gretel. After making his U.K. debut as Colline in La Boheme he returned to Scotland to perform the title-role in Rigoletto in a Scottish Opera's production.

He made his Chicago Opera Theater debut as Daggoo in their production of Jake Heggie’s “Moby Dick”. Shortly after, he made his South America debut as Noye in Noye’s Fludde. Kyles then returned to Chicago to make his Lyric Opera debut by way of their Lyric Unlimited program in their production of “Earth to Kenzie”. He had the great pleasure of following that successful production with being invited to perform a selection of arias at Carnegie Hall in 2019. Kyles recently has been a part of several world premieres throughout Chicago, some being, “Freedom Ride” by Dan Shore, “Taking Up Serpents” by Kamala Sankaram and “Quamino’s Map” by Errolyn Wallen. Chicago Opera Theater commissioned new art song pieces specifically for Kyles by living composers Stacy Garrop, Wang Lu, Matthew Recio. He most recently performed, “Two Black Churches” by friend and colleague, Shawn Okpebholo. He’s been invited back by the Lyric Opera to be part of productions, “The Scorpion Sting” and completely sold out run of “The Factotum”. Kyles is a former Young Artist with Chicago Opera Theater and graduated from the post-grad Opera Performance program through Chicago College of Performing Arts.