Teacher

Dr. Lydia Bechtel is excited to join the Music Department at Pittsburg State University as an Assistant Instructional Professor of Applied voice and Music History. She earned her DMA in Vocal Performance and MM in Musicology at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, while serving as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in Voice. While in Kansas City she also worked as an Adjunct Professor of Applied Voice at Northwest Missouri State University and Rockhurst University.

Bechtel has performed a number of operatic roles with companies in the U.S. and abroad. Recent performances include appearances with UMKC Opera, AIMS in Graz, Varna International Opera, Wichita Grand Opera, Boulder Opera, and Opera on Tap Colorado. Her roles include Fanny-La Cambiale di Matrimonio, Gretel-Hänsel und Gretel, Lisette-La Rondine, Serpetta-La Finta Giardiniera, Le feu-L’enfant et les sortilèges, Ilia-Idomeneo, and Mabel-Pirates of Penzance. As a soloist Bechtel returned to her alma mater, Oklahoma State University, in 2020 to perform Beethoven’s Mass in C at the newly opened McKnight Center for the Performing Arts. She has also been the soprano soloist for Bach’s Coffee Cantata, BWV 159 Sehet, wir gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem, and Handel’s Messiah.

Equally committed to scholarly endeavors, Dr. Bechtel presented her research at the 2018 CMS National Conference in Vancouver, “Pauline Viardot’s Transcriptions of Chopin’s Mazurkas: A Study in Artistry,” and presented a poster at the 2019 ATMI National Conference in Louisville, “Projects for the Digital Age: Using Public Musicology and the Digital Humanities to Develop Student Research.” In 2019 she earned the prestigious P.E.O. Scholar Award, which allowed her to complete research on Pauline Viardot at the Harvard Houghton Library, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and Mediathèque Hector Berlioz. Her musicology thesis research on Viardot earned her the Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award at UMKC and was recognized by the National Opera Association as the winner of their Scholarly Paper Competition in 2020.

Dr. Bechtel received her MM in Vocal Performance from Colorado State University where she served as a Graduate Teaching Assistant, teaching both Applied Voice and Music Theory Fundamentals. She earned her BM in Vocal Performance summa cum laude from Oklahoma State University.