Associate Professor of Music, Head of Vocal Performance
Phone: (239)590-7548
E-Mail: jdarnell@fgcu.edu
Office: Music Mod. Room 8B

Jeanie Darnell, Assistant Professor of Music, heads the voice area while teaching courses in Applied Voice, Diction and Music Literature. As a concert artist Darnell has been hailed by critics throughout the United States and in Europe for her "wonderfully bell-like tones" ( Wertheimer Zeitung ). A regional finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions in 1998, she recently performed as soloist in the Mozart Requiem with the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and presented songs by featured composers Richard Hundley and Lori Laitman at the "Songs Across the Americas Festival" in 2006. She sang the title role in Suor Angelica with the Operafestival di Roma in Italy , and is in demand as soprano soloist of major concert and oratorio repertoire. She has appeared as soprano soloist in Brahms' Ein Deutsches Requiem with the Omaha Symphony, Bach's B Minor Mass at the Denver Bach Festival, Mozart's Dominican Vespers with the Arkansas Chamber Orchestra, and Bach's St. Matthew Passion at the Lindsborg Messiah Festival in Kansas .

Dr. Darnell completed her Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance and Pedagogy at the University of Colorado-Boulder in 2002 while already heading the voice area as Assistant Professor of Music at University of Nebraska at Omaha . She has lectured on recital repertoire from Schubert to Berg at College Music Society (CMS) conferences, and she has performed the songs of Robert Boury in CMS recital performances. She also presented her research on "The Songs of Robert Boury" at the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) National Conference in Minneapolis in 2006, and on "Training Male Adolescent Voices in Private Studio" at the International Congress of Voice Teachers in Vancouver , British Columbia in August 2005.

In 2004 Darnell was selected to participate in the NATS Intern Program under the master teacher Dr. Robert McIvor, Chair of Vocal Studies at Eastman School of Music. Darnell also has served on faculty at Ouachita Baptist University , the University of Arkansas at Little Rock , the University of Central Arkansas , and Arkansas Technological University , and worked as a Part-time Graduate Instructor of Voice while at the University of Colorado-Boulder . Her voice pupils have placed at district and regional NATS Student Auditions and university sponsored voice competitions, and have been chosen to participate in summer internships and programs such as the Stephen Foster's Story Music Festival, the Memphis Playhouse, and Operafestival di Roma.