STUDIO of Musical Theater, Voice & Piano

MM- Bard Conservatory Graduate Vocal Arts Program

MM- Cum Laude, DePaul University School of Music, Voice

BA- University of California at Berkeley, Music

·       Bilingual teaching experience

·       Blended & online teaching experience

Teaching Philosophy Music is a living art, a language and a lens through which we see and express our shared humanity.  The foundational skills necessary to do so include but are not limited to ear training, rhythm, musicianship, reading music, and sight-singing.  For young musicians of the voice and piano, healthy vocal technique with an emphasis on breath control, musical and dramatic interpretation, stage presence, diction for English, Italian, French and German with a familiarity of the International Phonetic Alphabet and a history of style from the origins of solfeggio and written notation, through the Renaissance, Baroque, Viennese Classical School, Romantic periods to the Moderns, jazz, pop and beyond are fundamental tenants of an evolving young musician.  How do we find inspiration, how do we self organize, self teach, work in a group while maintaining our individuality and beyond that connect with, serve and build our community?  How does music change the world, our lives and beyond that our human experience?  These are the essential questions we address in devoting ourselves to the composition, study and performance of music!

Teaching Artist

Vanessa Langer received her formal vocal training with Dawn Upshaw at the Bard Graduate Vocal Fellowship program and with Susanne Mentzer as a New Horizon Fellow at the Aspen Music Festival & School. Vanessa returned to her native California to join the newly founded contemporary music ensemble, Wild Rumpus, as their lead vocalist with whom she performed contemporary works including ‘Index of Metals’ by Fausto Romitelli and excerpts from the ‘Kafka Fragments’ by Gyorgy Kurtag with guest violinist Joseph Maile of the Telegraph Quartet. During her tenure, the ensemble was selected for Chamber Music America and New Music America awards. With performances praised as a “showcase of virtuosity and imagination” by San Francisco Classical Voice, Wild Rumpus saw its mission to challenge and delight audiences by revealing beauty in unexpected places and resonances that transcend boundaries of generation, geography, and genre.

Vanessa established her own chamber music ensemble, Firesong, which raised funds to commission leading young composers, and to produce their work alongside rarely performed vocal chamber masterworks, winning grants from the Zellerbach Family Foundation and the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music. 

In addition to her professional performing activities as a vocal artist, Vanessa has pursued her joy for training young talented musicians as a voice instructor and coach, piano instructor and as a teaching artist in master-classes at the Crowden Music School, the French American School and Walden School.Most recently she has served as head vocal instructor at the Accademia Stabat Mater in Rho, Milano, where she gained experience teaching in a bilingual context, teaching in both Italian and English.Formal teaching experience include substitute music teacher at New York City’s Hunter College High School and vocal coach and pianist at the New Conservatory Theater of San Francisco.