Summary
CJ Greer joined the music and music theatre faculty at the University of Nevada, Reno implementing a new musical theatre degree program and creating crossover vocal training tracks.
Greer found her passion in vocal performance and instruction. She carries an MFA and MM in musical theatre and classical performance and pedagogy from Penn State University and a BME from the University of Illinois/Champaign-Urbana, instrumental and choral music education. She has performed around the world from theme park to Broadway to Carnegie Hall. She is a singer, actor, teacher and conductor with an undying love for storytelling through music. She has received national acclaim for her a cappella musical arrangements, has arranged and developed revue shows for cruise ships, cabaret shows, has been honored with multiple Helen Hayes nominations in performance and is currently developing a one-woman show.
She frequently presents at regional, national and international conferences and gives masterclasses on musical theatre vocal technique around the country. She is on the faculty of ‘Bel Canto Can Belto' - an experiential weekend workshop introducing musical theatre vocal pedagogy to classical voice teachers and singers. She also teaches many workshops for high school, collegiate and pre-professional programs on auditioning, performing and industry business. She was a recent guest of the University of Utah, giving a masterclass with their musical theatre majors and was an invited vocalist for the "Otolaryngology Performer's Voice" conference in Salt Lake City (April 2019). Greer served as vocal coach for the Heartland Ballet Company in Dubuque, Iowa and is currently the vocal instructor for " The Broadway Artists Intensive" - a three-week summer training program held in Florida for pre-professional musical theatre performers.
She is involved in several ongoing research projects. As an expert of musical theatre vocal technique training, she is teaming up with other experts of related interdisciplinary areas (SLP, physical therapy, theatre/stage combat) exploring where science and singing can heal. Greer has joined manual laryngeal therapist Christine Schneider exploring singers-self-care tension releasing practices and their effect on the four primary musical theatre vocal qualities. She is also working with voice/speech/movement instructor Adriano Cabral to create a visual representation of the acoustic structure present in multiple styles of singing by recording vowel formants in various singing qualities on a scatter plot mimicking the vowel quadrilateral. In areas of performance, she strives to re-define vocal performance expectations by passionately teaching singers awareness of their body and breath in order to more fully connect with material in auditions and on the stage.
As an instructor, Greer offers private lessons and workshops in various topics relating to vocal technique and performance, audition technique and industry business. Most recently, she premiered her workshop at Boston Conservatory and with CAP 21/NYC students on Embodying Performance - a performance lab experience fusing speech, movement, acting and singing techniques in performance preparation. She was highlighted in Classical Singer magazine's article From Mamma Mia! To Mozart (May 2019) as a flourishing cross-training performer and was interviewed for The Visceral Voice podcast (fall 2019) as an expert of vocal cross-training for careers in musical theatre.
In performance, she has been described as "warm, lovely, powerful, emotional" and "her beautiful voice makes her big numbers...worth the ticket price alone." Internationally, she spent a year in Japan performing in both English and Japanese and closing Walt Disney's longest running revue show "The Diamond Horseshoe Revue." Greer has received multiple Helen Hayes Award* nominations for her performances. Opera: La Bohème (Mimi), Il barbiere di siviglia (Rosina), Die Zauberflöte (First Lady); Broadway/National Tour credits include Sister Act, Les Misérables, The Producers, Ragtime, I Love A Piano, The Buddy Holly Story; Regional Credits: Mamma Mia (Donna/Casa Mañana), Annie* (Grace Farrell/Olney), Chess (Florence/NC Raleigh), Camelot* (Nimue/Olney), Grease (Rizzo/Casa Mañana), The Happy Time* (Laurie Manon/Signature Theatre), Saving Aimee / Scandalous (Signature Theatre), Crazy For You (Arvada), She Loves Me (Ilona Ritter), The Addams Family (Morticia), Into the Woods (Witch, Baker's Wife), Guys and Dolls (Sarah Brown), West Side Story (Maria), Man of La Mancha (Aldonza), The Secret Garden (Lily, Martha) and more.
Education
- MFA, Penn State, 2016
- MM, Penn State, 2016