Since returning to Nova Scotia, after completing her graduate studies at University of Toronto, Paula Rockwell has been steeped in musical projects, performances and music festivals in her home province, Canada and the United States. She teaches Applied Voice, Diction for Singers, Scene Studies and the Singing Actor at her alma mater Acadia University and has created productions for Acadia’s Singing Theatre Ensemble. She has been featured on several recordings and co-produced her debut CD entitled Fleeting Melodies, a collection of 20th century art songs and arias.
Paula has taken on several operatic roles since graduating from University of Toronto working with the Canadian Opera Company, Toronto’s Opera in Concert, Vancouver Opera, Tidal Opera, Orchestre Baroque de Montreal, Opera Nova Scotia and Maritime Concert Opera. She has performed with Symphony Nova Scotia, Chorus of Westerly, RI, North York Philharmonic, ON, Symphony New Brunswick, Peterborough Singers, ON, The Music Room Chamber Series in Halifax as well as for many fundraisers, including Music for Haiti, Women Only at Pier 21 and the annual Opera Nova Scotia’s Opera Valentine. Paula is heard every summer giving masterclasses, vocal warm-up sessions and a recital in Lyman, New Hampshire at The Ogontz Choral Symposium.
She adjudicates music festivals on the Provincial and National level and gives clinics/masterclasses on the topic of vocal pedagogy, interpretation and stage craft. Paula will be working on new projects including a recording of original works Unwrapped, due for release in September 2018, and a one woman show entitled Letters from Home, based on letters from her great grandmother to her maternal grandmother (circa 1941-1961).
Recent projects include directing and creating Scenes from Street Scenes by Kurt Weill, an opera excerpt show entitled The B Boys of Opera and a musical theatre excerpt program entitled The Games People Play in Musicals: Chess & The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and in 2016 directed Grease – the musical for Acadia’s Singing Theatre Ensemble. She was soloist with Acadia University’s Choral production of Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy. She also was the vocal coach for Halifax Summer Opera Workshop productions of Bizet’s Carmen and Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. She sang the alto solo in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Symphony New Brunswick in May 2014 and performed it again in Fredericton, NB in April 2016. She has performed with the Halifax based contemporary music group, Musikon at the Saint Mary’s Art Gallery as well as a recent Garden Room Concert Series recital entitled Sing the Trumpet at Acadia University with trumpeter Curtis Dietz and collaborative pianist Jennifer King. This concert was performed again in September 2016 at the Indian Brook Concert Series in Cape Breton. In May 2016, Paula sang the mezzo-soprano solo in Verdi’s Requiem with the Chorus of Westerly, RI with Maestro David Hill at the podium and in August, performed a recital in New London and Lyman, NH with American collaborative pianist, Geoffrey Wieting. In May 2017, Paula sang the lead role in Opera Nova Scotia’s production of Gustav Holst’s opera Savitri. This past April she was the director of the Canadian musical Pélagie, written by Allen Cole, which was performed at Acadia’s Denton Auditorium and performed an Alumni Concert July 7 with collaborative pianist Jennifer King and David Parker, French horn, in the Garden Room at Acadia University. She has just finished performing the role of the Beggar Woman in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd with Side-By-Side Productions and The Wolfville Theatre Collective at the Al Whittle Theatre, Wolfville, NS.
