Martha Elliott, soprano, writer and teacher has performed a wide range of repertoire, including avant-guard contemporary music, opera, chamber music, baroque music with period instruments and musical theatre. She has toured all over the world with the new music ensemble Continuum, performing in New York City, South America, Europe and Asia, as well as throughout the US.
Since joining the Performance Faculty at Princeton in 1985, she has taught generations of Triangle and musical theatre singers, many of whom have gone on to perform professionally on Broadway and elsewhere. Her classical students have gone onto graduate study at Manhattan School of Music, New England Conservatory, Boston University and the Royal College and Royal Academy in London. A specialist in baroque style and historical performance practice, her two books on the subject, Singing in Style: A Guide to Vocal Performance Practices (Yale, 2006), and So You Want To Sing Early Music (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017), are widely used in conservatories across the US and abroad. At Princeton she has taught courses in German Lieder, Baroque Vocal Chamber Music, and the ever popular Singing American Musical Theatre. She is also a longtime meditator and both student and teacher of mindfulness. She is interested in incorporating those tools and approaches into her voice teaching. Graduating from Princeton in1982, she was a proud member of the Katzenjammers. Please visit www.marthaelliott.net for more information.
A.B. cum laude Princeton University 1982
M.M. Juilliard School 1984
Fellowship Aspen Music School 1983
Fellowship Tanglewood Music Festival 1984
Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute 1987
Performances of 20 th century repertoire with New York’s Continuum on tour throughout the US, South America, Europe and Asia, Philadelphia’s Network for New Music, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, New Jersey Chamber Music Society, Philadelphia Chamber Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Odessa Philharmonic, Vermont Symphony, Concert Royale, New England Bach Festival, Princeton Pro Musica, Pennsylvania Opera Theatre, Opera Festival of New Jersey, Festivals of Aspen, Tanglewood and Marlboro. Appearances at the Library of Congress, Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Vienna Concert Haus, Rudolfinum in Prague and on tour with the Princeton University Orchestra through out the UK and the Netherlands.
Grammy Nomination for singing best new piece of 2005 – Two Songs by Jennifer Margaret Barker
Her writing has appeared in Music and Letters, The Journal of Singing, and a volume entitled Teaching Singing in the 21 st Century, published by Springer. Her book So You Want to Sing Early Music, received a rave review in Early Music America Magazine from respected authority Ellen Harris.
She has presented talks and workshops for the National Association of Teachers of Singing at their National Conferences, Winter Workshops and local chapters, at the International Congress of Voice Teachers in Brisbane, Australia, and at the National Early Music Association Conference on Historical Vocal Performance Practice at York University, in the U.K.
