Anne Geissinger, Adjunct Instructor
M.M., Northwestern University, voice
Office: Room 29, Fine Arts; Telephone: 812-488-2427
e-mail: algeissinger@sigecom.net

Ms. Geissinger has appeared as soloist and recitalist in New York and Texas performing repertoire ranging from Bach cantatas to works of contemporary American composers. She has studied pedagogy and choral methods at Westminster Choir College and the physiology and acoustics of the voice at the Richard Miller Vocal Performance and Pedagogy Institutes in Nashville and Chicago. She is also a student of the Alexander Technique. Her teaching and directing experience includes public school vocal music, community theatre and English handbells.

Gregory Rike, Assistant Professor      WEBPAGE
D.M.A., Ohio State University, voice
Office: Room 36, Fine Arts; Telephone: 812-488-2885
e-mail: gr15@evansville.edu

Gregory B. Rike, DMA, is an assistant professor of voice at the University of Evansville, Evansville, Indiana, where he teaches applied voice, diction, class voice to majors and non majors and also serves as the musical director for the nationally recognized UE theater program. Dr. Rike is in demand as a performer, clinician, and coach being equally comfortable with opera, oratorio, art song, and musical theater genres. He has coached such shows as A Little Night Music, Follies, Company, Urinetown, Grand Hotel, The Last Five Years, and Into the Woods as well as The Marriage of Figaro, Baby Doe, and Tartuffe. He has performed with various opera companies as well as the Evansville, Toledo, Charleston, Columbus, and Ohio State Symphony Orchestras. He has judged National Association of Teachers of Singing competitions in Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Ontario, Canada, as well as the Metropolitan Auditions in Memphis, Tennessee. He has held teaching positions at the University of Mississippi, The Ohio State University, Ohio Northern University, Heidelberg College, and the University of Findlay.

Elizabeth Truitt, Adjunct Instructor
M.M., Baylor University, voice
Office: Room 26, Fine Arts; Telephone: 812-488-2407
e-mail: bt45@evansville.edu

Originally from Long Island, New York, soprano Elizabeth Truitt has performed across the Eastern and Central United States with companies like Mobile Opera, Pensacola Opera, Waco Lyric Opera, Granbury Opera, Oklahoma Shakespeare Festival and Fort Worth Opera. Her roles have included Cio-Cio San in Madama Butterfly, Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, and Alice Ford in Falstaff. She has also appeared in Carlisle Floyd's one-woman opera Flower and Hawk in the role of Eleanor of Aquitaine. She has been seen on the concert stage in Texas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Florida, Indiana and Louisiana and was also a semi-finalist in the Orpheus National Music Competition and a winner of the Houston Gilbert and Sullivan Society's Opera Career Grant. Truitt received both her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Baylor University. She has served on the faculty of the University of Mary Hardin Baylor and taught voice at Baylor University as a graduate assistant. In addition, she has had a large private teaching studio for the last twelve years, working with students of all ages and abilities, some of whom have gone on to professional careers in music and theatre.

Jon Truitt, Assistant Professor      WEBPAGE
D.M.A., Louisiana State University, voice, opera
Office: Room 101, Fine Arts; Telephone: 812-488-2758
e-mail:jt82@evansville.edu

A native of Houston, Texas, Jon Truitt has sung with professional opera companies across the United States, such as New Orleans Opera, St. Petersburg Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Mobile Opera, Pensacola Opera, Opera Illinois, the Crested Butte Music Festival, Jacksonville Opera, and the Jefferson Performing Arts Society. He as appeared as Figaro in Barber of Seville (a role the St. Petersburg Times said he was “born to play”), Don Giovanni in Don Giovanni, Guglielmo in Cosi fan tutte, Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus, Ford in Falstaff, Captain Corcoran in HMS Pinafore, and more than thiry other roles in the lyric baritone repertoire. On the concert stage, he has sung with the Evansville, Jacksonville, Florimezzo, Acadiana, Waco, Baylor, and LSU symphonies and in numerous public solo recitals. He is also a two-time apprentice artist with the Des Moines Metro Opera, a Metropolitan Opera Regional Finalist, and a NATSAA Indiana State Winner. Additionally, Dr. Truitt serves as the director of the Crested Butte Music Festival's Opera Young Artist Program in Paradise and co-directs the Young Artist Program at St. Petersburg Opera in Florida. He is building a national reputation as a stage director, having recently directed Tartuffe, Barber of Seville, Amahl and the Night Visitors, and Die Fledermaus. Upcoming productions as director and/or principle singer include La Boheme, Pagliacci, Elixir of Love, and Don Giovanni.
           Currently, Dr. Truitt serves as the Head of the Choral and Vocal Area and Director of Opera at the University of Evansville, a highly ranked small liberal arts college in the Mid-west. He has received a Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Vocal Performance from Baylor University in Texas, where he was a student of John Van Cura, and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Louisiana State University, where he studied with Stephen Austin and Kyle Marrero. As an undergraduate, he was the recipient of the Baylor National Merit Scholarship, a full tuition award, the Baylor Presidential Scholarship, and the IBM Thomas Watson Scholarship. As a graduate student, he was the recipient of a full assistantship in voice and opera, and as a doctoral student he was the recipient of LSU's largest graduate award to date, the prestigious Regent Fellowship.  

Roberta Veazey, Assistant Professor
M.M., University of Illinois, voice
Office: Room 105, Fine Arts; Telephone: 812-488-2882
e-mail: rv5@evansville.edu

A renowned soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician, soprano Roberta Bebb Veazey is equally respected as a teacher, clinician, and conductor. Long a member of the voice faculty of the University of Evansville, she has also chaired the Department of Music. Mrs. Veazey is a cum laude graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (where she has been recognized as an outstanding alumnae) and the University of Illinois where her teachers included Grace Wilson, William Warfield, and the internationally famous coach/accompanist John Wustman.
          Having received a two-year national recital tour as winner of the International Artist Competition and being a finalist in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions, Mrs. Veazey's performance career has had a broad national base encompassing recital, chamber works, and oratorio.
          Selected twice as an artist-fellow of the Bach Aria Festival of Stony Brook, New York, she has also received a fellowship to the Aspen Music Festival as a member of and frequent soloist with the Chamber Choir. Recital performances include New York's 92nd Street Y and Weill Auditorium, Carnegie Hall. She has been a soloist with the symphony orchestras of Indianapolis (IN), Jacksonville (FL), Phoenix (AZ), Champaign-Urbana (IL), and the Baroque Consortium of Los Angeles (CA).