2027 NATS Intern Program Master Teachers
David Sabella 
David Sabella: A distinguished career as a singer, actor, voice teacher, author, and arts administrator. Contributions span Broadway, opera, cabaret, and vocal pedagogy. Renowned for his exceptional voice, and a remarkable four-octave range. He gained significant recognition, notably winning the Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition in 1995, where Pavarotti publicly declared him “Excellent, not good. Excellent!” Sabella is recognized as one of the "progenitors of the American countertenor sound,” along with classical music colleagues David Daniels, and Brian Asawa, and has performed in prestigious venues like Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, and with opera companies across the United States and internationally.
However, he is perhaps best known for his years on Broadway, originating the role of “Mary Sunshine” in the 1996 revival of "CHICAGO,” with Ann Reinking, Bebe Neuwirth, and Joel Grey. He performed this role for nearly 10 years on Broadway and on Tour, and recently (August 2025) made an historic return to Broadway, in the role he created, 29 years after opening! A historic Broadway first. Concurrently, he has had a successful career as a concert artist, performing in renowned venues in New York City and beyond. He is a two time MAC award winner, in 2022 for Major Male Artist, and in 2024 for impersonation, characterization, drag, as his musical alter ego “Amanda Reckonwith.”
Sabella also worked on animated television series, including Disney's "Teacher's Pet" and Fox's "Peter Pan and the Pirates." Off Broadway includes, starring roles in “Jules: The Julian Eltinge Story,” and “The Phillie Trilogy,” for which he won an award for “Outstanding Lead Actor in a Play.” He is also an Internationally recognized voice teacher and has taught at prestigious institutions, including NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and Montclair State University, and Fordham University (Lincoln Center Campus). His research on contemporary commercial music (CCM) vocal techniques, particularly the "high contemporary belt," was highly influential in redefining how these vocal techniques are taught in the US. He is co-author of “So You Want to Sing Cabaret,” (Bloomsbury 2020) and is featured as one of twelve international voice teachers who developed a pedagogy specific to Contemporary Commercial Voice in “So You Want to Sing CCM,” (Bloomsbury 2018). Sabella served as a two-term President of the New York Singing Teachers' Association (NYSTA) 2008-2014, and as Executive Director of Ann Reinking’s Broadway Theatre Project (2012-2015). Currently he is the President/CEO and Artistic Director of the Bella Vox Performing Arts Foundation, a US non-profit theater & vocal arts production and education company, producing Broadway and Cabaret’s brightest stars, high quality performances, classes & workshops throughout the US, Mexico and Canada.
Ollie Watts Davis
Described as “a bubbling stream of a voice, remarkably smooth down into a resonant, rich low register” (San Francisco Chronicle), Ollie Watts Davis regularly earns superlatives for her vocal artistry, extraordinary versatility, and radiant stage presence. Since her New York debut at Carnegie Hall, she has performed throughout the Americas, Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
Passionate about historic performances, Davis presented I’m a Stranger Here Myself, for the exhibit, With Firmness in the Right: Lincoln and the Jews, and The Concert that Shook the Establishment, a recreation of Marian Anderson’s 1939 Easter morning concert, at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum. In honor of educator Dr. Mary McCleod Bethune, she performed on Capitol Hill and offered “Toward Justice and Shared Humanity” as The Black Rose concert in Fort Lauderdale. Davis is the Suzanne and William Allen Distinguished Professor in Music, founder of the Black Sacred Music Symposium, and an Associate Dean in the College of Fine and Applied Arts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her accolades include the Outstanding Faculty Leadership Award, Awards for Excellence in Teaching, the Bronze Medallion, and the University Scholar designation. The recipient of the 2023 NATS Central Region Lifetime Achievement Award, Davis has been named a 2027 inductee into the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame. Davis holds the D.MA. and the M.M. from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; the M.A. from West Virginia University; and the B.S. from West Virginia Institute of Technology, where she was named Alumna of the Year.
John Nix
John Nix is Professor of Voice and Voice Pedagogy at the University of Texas-San Antonio. Current and former students have sung with the Met Chorus (NYC), Santa Fe, Arizona, Chautauqua, St. Louis, Nevada, Omaha, and San Antonio opera companies, several serve as voice faculty at US colleges and universities, and two have served as NATS Intern Master Teachers. John has published more than 50 articles and 10 book chapters; he has also co-chaired the NATS Voice Science Advisory Committee, is a co-founder of the NATS Science-Informed Pedagogy Institute, serves as an Associate Editor for The Journal of Singing, and is a member of the American Academy of Teachers of Singing, where he serves as Secretary. Mr. Nix is editor and annotator of From Studio to Stage: Repertoire for the Voice (Scarecrow, 2002), vocal music editor for the Oxford Handbook of Music Education (OUP, 2012), one of three general editors for the Oxford Handbook of Singing (OUP, 2019), and one of two general editors (with Leda Scearce) for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Voice Pedagogy (OUP, pending March 2027).
Lyndia Johnson
MzLyndia Johnson is a conservatory-trained opera singer turned global vocal coach and artist developer — a practitioner-scholar who has redefined what it means to train the contemporary voice. Educated at Temple University and the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University; her early operatic promise was nurtured by legendary pedagogues Klara Meyers and Margaret Harshaw, before making a bold pivot in 1998 — stepping away from opera to embrace the music that first shaped her voice: Gospel and R&B. Influenced by the rich musical soil of The Sound of Philadelphia, MzLyndia launched a 25-year career as a vocal coach and vocal producer. She became a trusted collaborator with Grammy-winning producers including Larry Sturm, Maurice Joshua, Steve “Silk” Hurley, and more. This led to a seat on the Board of Governors for the Recording Academy, and in 2004, she developed the inaugural vocal curriculum for GRAMMY Camp.
In 2017, MzLyndia joined the faculty of the USC Thornton School of Music’s Popular Music Program, blazing a historic trail as the first African American voice coach in the school’s history. Today, she serves as Chair, leading what is widely regarded as the most progressive and results- driven Popular Music curriculum in the world. At USC, MzLyndia often collaborates with friend and colleague, Lynn Helding, to explore the intersections of Classical and Commercial voice. Together, they blend insights from Vocology to foster shared language across stylistic divides — modeling a future where technique, authenticity, and genre fluidity exist in dynamic conversation.
An upcoming contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of Contemporary Music, she pioneers Popular Voice Pedagogy through both scholarship and lived experience. Her Vocal Artist Development company, Sterling Voice Coaching, serves Pop, R&B, Rock, Country and Gospel recording artists around the world. MzLyndia stands as a bridge between disciplines and cultures. Although fluent in many pedagogical languages, she champions the legitimacy, complexity, and relevance of Popular Voice Pedagogy as a legitimate field of study — with its own methodologies, expressive vocabulary, and cultural relevance.
Rosalyn Floyd
Rosalyn W. Floyd is Professor of piano, accompanying, and music theory in the Department of Music at Augusta University. A graduate of Talladega College in Alabama, Dr. Floyd holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy from the University of South Carolina. Best known as a collaborative artist, Dr. Floyd has accompanied the acclaimed sopranos Martino Arroyo, Jessye Norman, Laquita Mitchell, Marcía Porter and Indra Thomas; distinguished mezzo sopranos Alexis Davis-Hazell, Tanya Currier, and Levone Tobin-Scott; noted baritones Oral Moses, Marcus Bream, Timothy Jones and Kevin Short; and Grammy-winning tenor Nicholas Phan. Dr. Floyd’s collaborative endeavors have taken her to many areas throughout the United States, the Bahamas, Vienna AT, and the Peoples’ Republic of China. Named as the Greater Augusta Arts Council Artist of the Year (2005) and recently honored by the Jessye Norman School of the Arts for her work with area artists and the Augusta Choral Society, Dr. Floyd can be heard as the accompanist on the Albany Records recordings Oral Moses Sings Songs of America, Come Down Angels, Steal Away, and Sankofa. Her collaboration with the Drs. Alexis Davis-Hazell and Marcía Porter is known as “My Sister’s Keeper,” and is dedicated to the research, performance, and promotion of works by African American women.
