University at Buffalo
Dr. Du Mouchelle has led the vocal performance program at University at Buffalo since 2015. At UB, she teaches private lessons, directs the Opera Studio and the experimental vocal ensemble, Polyglot. In addition to teaching other courses in Vocal Pedagogy, Singers’ Diction, Opera History, and African Music, she also developed “Break on Through”, a creative empowerment course for musicians and other performers.
Private Voice Studio
Dr. Du Mouchelle offers private lessons, diction coaching, and contemporary music coaching in her private studio. Her students range from high-school through adult, including classical singers, contemporary art music specialists, Peking opera singers, Classical Hindi Music specialists, jazz, blues, and Afro American genre musicians from Sierra Leone, China, Tunisia, France, India, and beyond.
Interested? Contact Dr. Du Mouchelle here to out more!
Lectures and Masterclasses
Du Mouchelle is available for masterclasses on Western Classical, contemporary, and extended vocal techniques. Lectures include topics of performance empowerment and vocal expressivity through diction and contemporary vocal techniques.
About 100 Ways to say I Love You:
Most Western Art Music singers develop analytical tools to learn their repertoire though a process of learning that includes many inherited biases. Pitch is most often placed as a primary focus, possibly connecting through an understanding of traditional harmony and voice leading. Rhythm is secondary, and tertiary components include most everything else: dynamics, phrasing, text meaning, tempo, and various articulations. Young singers are championed for their ability to sing in tune while advanced singers are lauded for their ability to perform beyond the page. There exists subtlety in performance that is often considered instinctual, and therefore is largely ignored in pedagogy. An exploration of the sounds of the words and their timbre, texture, and articulation offers a deeper consideration with the timbral, textural, and dramatic palette available within a composition. Relating to the sounds of the words and their sonic properties, in addition to the meaning of the words, offers a pathway to intuited subtleties that can be taught, learned and developed. Applicable to any vocal work, including spoken word compositions, analysis in this capacity, can especially assist in the rendering of contemporary art music, where text is not always utilized in traditional ways. Sokolovic’s unaccompanied mono-drama for voice, “Love Songs” (in 100 languages) features a wide assortment of text setting: lyrical, dramatic, textural, and rhythmic. Using excerpts from Sokolovic’s composition, Du Mouchelle explores diction as a means to direct performative decisions of timbre, noise, rhythm, and drama.
Expression and Creativity Experimental Learning Laboratory (EX.C.E.L.L.)
Du Mouchelle founded EX.C.E.L.L. in 2019, in hopes to help people liberate their creative voices.
“As a professional singer and teacher, I have helped many students gain the skills to become professional artists. I have also encountered many blocked artists, people who wish to sing or create, but who find themselves limited for one reason or another. I have found that many of the same issues that I work on with my professional singers are the same issues that blocked creatives encounter: a disconnect with their inner creative artist; diminished self esteem; tension; misalignment; fear; etc. I don’t believe that some people are creative and others aren’t. I believe that creativity is an integral part of human nature, but that many aspects of our society hinder our creative natures. Most people who “can’t” are really blocked creatives who have just as much potential as any professional artist. The issue isn’t one of talent. The question is: how do we help an inner creative entity that has been repeatedly told that they “can’t” to finally realize that they “can”? “
EX.C.E.L.L. offers workshops and seminars on creative practice and empowerment and private creativity coaching.
Visit www.expressioncreativitylab.com for more information
Cultures in Harmony
Du Mouchelle has performed at taught as a cultural diplomat with Cultures in Harmony since 2009. With CiH she has participated in projects in Papua New Guinea, Egypt, Cameroon, and Tunisia.
Click here for more information about Cultures in Harmony.