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My Journey to Teaching


I’ll be honest – after my two years of teaching K-8 at a Catholic elementary school, I
never thought I’d be a teacher again.

 
When I finished graduate school, I got a job as a legal secretary to pay the bills while I sang at night. And I was good at it, but it wasn’t that fulfilling for me. I thought that maybe teaching voice would give me the freedom that law firms weren’t willing to give me to take gigs and go on the road. I figured that maybe I’d do that for awhile, and then get hired by a college (maybe even my alma mater, Peabody).

 

 

And after a few years of teaching privately, I taught at two colleges in Milwaukee, and then, after moving to Maryland, I was hired as an adjunct at two community colleges. I thought of these as stepping-stones to a full-time college job. 

 

So although I started teaching privately because I thought it was better than being a legal secretary, eventually —

 

I discovered that I was really good at this!

 And I realized that –

I really LIKED being a private teacher!

 

The reasons:

 

 

  • I like teaching in my own space (can’t beat the commute!)
  • I like choosing students’ repertoire based on their needs and evaluating their progress based on my own rubric rather than a departmentally defined one
    AND
  • I like creating new formats to challenge them and spur their growth as performers, rather than the one that’s been set in stone for years and years. This has been especially true during the pandemic.


Not only have I helped hundreds of people find their voices, I’ve found my own voice in the process.

 

It’s a LOT better than being a legal secretary (at least for me).

BUT I'M STILL SINGING (and plan to do so for quite awhile)!!
Check out my singer bio and recordings below

Christine Thomas, Mezzo-Soprano

Christine Thomas, Mezzo-Soprano (The Singer)

Opera, Oratorio, Art Song, Musical Theater, Cabaret, and Recital (sometimes even karaoke)

Artist's Bio

Christine Thomas, a mezzo soprano currently based in the Baltimore-DC area, has performed everything from the motets of J.S. Bach to the melodies of Irving Berlin to the minimalism of Philip Glass. She holds a master’s degree in vocal performance from the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. 


Christine has done so many Messiahs that if you play a D major chord during the month of December, she will bolt upright from a sound sleep and sing, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive….” Her other concert work includes the Beethoven’s Mass in C , Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, Duruflé’s Requiem, Debussy’s La Damoiselle Elue, the C.P.E. Bach Magnificat, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, and Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man. She has also performed and recorded Mark Brymer’s The Christmas Suite with Milwaukee Children’s Choir. In 2014, she made her NYC debut with the late Lloyd Arriola conducting “Bernstein Remembered,” a tribute concert on the 25th Anniversary of the death of Leonard Bernstein (she was the only non-NYC artist in the performance). 


Ms. Thomas is frequently in demand for contemporary music, especially new compositions. She has a passion for performing and teaching music by contemporary American composers. She recently commissioned composer 
Garth Baxter to write Music’s Path: Six Songs by Irish Poets, three songs of which are in Irish Gaelic as well as English. She can also be heard on the recording of Flight Box with Present Music and Cinq Poèmes de Tristan Tzara with pianist Milton Peckarsky on a tribute CD produced in Bucharest, Romania.

Christine is extremely versatile, having been referred to by the Journal-Sentinel’s Elaine Schmidt as giving a “tasteful interpretation” of Sigmund Snopek’s song cycle, and one month later, by the same critic, lauded as “the wildly randy Wanda Kazlakowski” in 
A Cudahy Carolers Christmas with In Tandem Theatre. [She is unseemingly proud of the latter description.]


As an opera singer and actress, she has appeared with companies throughout the Milwaukee/Chicago and DC/Baltimore areas. She has created  roles in five world premieres to date, including:

  • The Woman in Red, Dream of Valentino (Washington Opera)
  • Mary Pickersgill, O’er the Ramparts (Community College of Baltimore County)
  • Beatrice, Inferno, (Windfall Theatre, Milwaukee, WI)
  • Rachel Lynde, Memoirs of Anne (Harford Community College, Bel Air, MD)
  • Bertha/Jean, Do It Now! (Stevenson University, Baltimore)


Other roles include Mrs. Paroo in Music Man, Mother Abbess in Sound of Music, Dorabella in Cosi Fan Tutte, Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro, both Hansel and the Witch in Hansel & Gretel, and many roles in Gilbert & Sullivan operettas. Her performance as the Housekeeper in Man of La Mancha was honored with a WATCH award nomination


In 2017, Ms. Thomas added the role of stage director to her accomplishments, taking the helm of Little Women The Musical (in  which she also played Marmee), with Third Wall Productions in Baltimore, MD, She is an enthusiastic cabaret performer and was a regular at Germano’s Piattini and Cabaret in Little Italy (Baltimore).

Recordings (Audio)

Video Performances

Singer/Actor Resumé

Singer/Actor Resume - Christine Thomas

Christine Thomas, Mezzo-Soprano, Actor & Director

Upcoming Performances

  • Section leader, Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, Baltimore, MD
  • High Holidays Choir, Temple Har Sinai/Oheb Shalom, Baltimore, MD
  • Elektra (chorus), Washington National Opera, Kennedy Center, Washington, DC
With pianist Michael Tan at Germano's

Mezzoid Voice Studio is committed to serving all of its students, 

past, present, and future, and recognizing diversity and equality as essential elements of that service. Hate has no place in the studio.

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