Voice Faculty

Supervisor of the Master of Music in Vocal Performance   

Karen Bauer, mezzo soprano, is in her 30th year of teaching at North Park University. She has soloed with the Chicago Baroque Ensemble, Northwest Symphony, Elgin Symphony, and the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia Festival. She is a respected pedagogue, committed to developing sound vocal technique with singers at all levels. Her pedagogical methods have helped many students enter careers in opera and teaching in the United States and Europe. As well as teaching applied voice at North Park, she has directed the opera program and Chamber Singers, taught voice-related courses such as Vocal Literature, Vocal Pedagogy, and Vocal Diction, and served a seven-year term as director of the School of Music. Bauer is sought after as a master class teacher, most recently at the Opera Festival di Roma in Italy, for Korean universities in Seoul and KwangJu, and in American colleges and universities. Bauer has held various posts in the National Association of Teachers of Singing including president of the Chicago Chapter, and is currently on its Board of Directors. Her two-part article on the Baroque solo cantata was published in the NATS Journal of Singing in 2007.

Lyric soprano Annie Picard is a soloist, chamber musician, and voice teacher whose musical achievements have been widely recognized and rewarded. A multiple award-winner for her work both performing on the stage and teaching in the studio, Annie is equally at home in the realm of opera, oratorio, art song, and chamber music. She has performed with Lyric Opera of Chicago, Opera Theatre Saint Louis, Du Page Opera Theatre, and Illinois Opera Theatre, and has sung on concerts throughout the United States, including appearances with John Wustman for his Schubert Lieder recital series. Annie’s great passion is performing art song and chamber music, and she enjoys being musically adventuresome, dedicating herself to creating recitals that explore widely varying themes and genres. Her repertoire ranges from lute songs by John Dowland to Dominick Argento’s Letters from Composers, and she is as compelling in French, Italian, German and Russian as she is in English. Born in Montreal, and raised outside St. Louis, Annie received a Bachelor of Music as a Curator Scholar from the University of Missouri at Columbia; a Master of Music and Artist Diploma from the New England Conservatory in Boston, and a Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her teachers include voice with Costanza Cuccaro, Susan Clickner and Nicholas Di Virgilio; coaching with George Darden, Margo Garrett, Louis Krasner, Eric Dalheim and John Wustman; opera with John Moriarty and Robert De Simone. Annie Picard joined the music faculties of North Park University and Moraine Valley Community College in 1998. She became a Board Member of the Chicago Chapter of NATS in 2010. Annie’s unique teaching style strikes a balance between the pedagogical and the “natural”: she instills in her students a thorough understanding of the technical aspects of singing, but with equal emphasis on the kinetic, and on singing freely, both bodily and in expression.

Jeffrey Ray, baritone, made his European opera debut at Deutsche Opera, Berlin in 1997 after which he became a regular on the roster there. In the United States, beginning with the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists in Chicago, he has sung roles with Opera Delaware, Utah Opera, Knoxville Opera, DuPage Opera, and Opera Grand Rapids. His roles include Marcello, Sharpless, Seville's Figaro, Gianni Schicchi, Belcore, and Don Giovanni. Mr. Ray's orchestral collaborations include two appearances at Carnegie Hall, Handel's "Messiah" and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ "Dona Nobis Pacem." He made his debut at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, singing the "Messiah" with The National Chorale. He has worked with conductors Leonard Slatkin, Bruno Bartoletti, and John Nelson, among many others.