Joe Fitzgerald
Adjunct Instructor of Vocal Coaching
Music
Music - Vocal Coaches
Biography
Joe Fitzgerald has served The Wanda Bass School of Music at ³ûÖÊÓƵ for 6 years as a faculty member and a conductor of the ³ûÖÊÓƵ Opera and Musical Theater Company.
Hailed as a "coach extraordinaire" by Broadway legend Kristin Chenoweth, Joe Fitzgerald is a vocal coach, conductor, pianist, and organist. A native of Topeka, Kansas, he has called Oklahoma City home since 2015. With more than 50 show credits as diverse as Monty Python's Spamalot and Puccini's Tosca, he is an accomplished répétiteur, vocal coach, chorus master, and music director. He has been Associate Music Director for Painted Sky Opera, Oklahoma City's professional opera company, from its inaugural season in 2016 through the present time, including such productions as Lucia di Lammermoor, La Traviata, Three Decembers, Der Fliegende Holländer and many others. His operatic music directing debut was a concert production of La Gioconda in 2017.
Equally at home as a church organist and choral director, Fitzgerald's musical career spans to childhood when he first started playing for church. His first organist appointment was at the age of 17 at the North Topeka Baptist Church. He has served several churches in Kansas and Oklahoma as organist and choir director, including his current role as organist at Hillcrest Presbyterian Church, OKC. Fitzgerald has performed with and served as faculty for a variety of academic and professional institutes, including Topeka Civic Theatre, Bay View Music Festival, Metropolitan Ballet of Topeka, the Pollard Theatre, Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, Canterbury Voices, The OKC Philharmonic, the Taos Opera Institute, and OperArezzo in Tuscany, Italy. His past administrative roles have included deanships in the American Guild of Organists, Collaborative Piano Coordinator for the Bass School of Music, and founding Artistic Director of OperArezzo.
His former students have gone on to careers as performers in regional theatres and national tours, working in all aspects of the musical theatre industry around the world. His vocal coaching students have had careers as music directors and members of Broadway orchestras, as well as various other theatres at every level. Additionally, his students have gone on to work at the Metropolitan Opera of New York, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Houston Grand Opera, Washington National Opera, Sarasota Opera, Central City Opera, Tulsa Opera, Painted Sky Opera, The Merola Opera Program, The Seagle Festival, Opera Saratoga, and others, and have continued their education at prestigious institutions such as The Julliard School, The San Francisco Conservatory, Rice University, NYU Steinhardt, Manhattan School of Music, and the University of Michigan.
He has a Bachelor of Arts in Music - Organ Performance, from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, and a Master of Music in Vocal Coaching from ³ûÖÊÓƵ.
