The National Association of Teachers of Singing has named Lily Guerrero as the recipient of the 2025 Clifton Ware Group-Voice Pedagogy Award.

Now in its fourth year, the annual award supports NATS members who are advancing group-voice instruction, or “class voice,” in community, independent, or academic settings. Recipients demonstrate a commitment to a collaborative learning approach through formal classes, studio sessions, workshops, and other innovative settings.

Guerrero is an assistant professor of voice and pedagogy at the University of Texas at Austin, and she serves as the vice president for membership on the NATS board of directors. She will receive a $1,000 award to support her Westminster retirement community group-voice project, which blends teaching, outreach, and research.

Her plan is to offer a free, weekly group-voice class taught by DMA voice pedagogy students at Westminster, a senior living community in Austin. Guerrero will supervise the instruction through teaching observations and by overseeing the curriculum.

The award funds will be used to purchase a classroom set of “The Singing Book” and provide gas stipends for the student teachers.

“My hope it that this can become a yearly offering where DMA students can also begin to collect data on teaching group voice to the elderly and the implications of serving this demographic,” she said. “Ultimately, this research could be submitted to the Journal of Singing to serve the profession.”

The committee noted that Guerrero’s project achieves multiple goals aligned with the spirit of the award:

• Provides group-voice teaching experience for doctoral pedagogy students
• Delivers quality, no-cost programming for the community
• Encourages intergenerational participation
• Offers opportunity to research the benefits of singing for elderly and underserved populations
• Expands knowledge for NATS members through presentations and possibly publication in the Journal of Singing. 

Guerrero began teaching group-voice as a doctoral student at Florida State University. Later, while at Texas Lutheran University, she taught group-voice to instrumental music education majors and revamped the curriculum to better suit their needs.

“Over time I figured out how to ‘stretch my ears’ to listen to multiple voices at a time and listen for group needs in my instruction,” she said.

Guerrero also has proposed a group-voice offering for non-majors at UT Austin, which has advanced to the university committee level. She hopes this endeavor will further enhance her skills as she mentors student voice teachers interested in group instruction.

“Together we can provide quality programming to the community as well as important research for the profession,” she said.

NATS also awarded an honorable mention to Matthew Markham.

NATS congratulates Guerrero and Markham for their positive contributions to the field. The association encourages fellow members to apply for future cycles of the Clifton Ware Group-Voice Pedagogy Award, even if they have previously applied.

About Liliana Guerrero

Dr. Liliana Guerrero is assistant professor of voice at the Butler School of Music, where she teaches applied voice/vocal pedagogy and advises the SNATS chapter. The daughter of Mexican and Cuban immigrants, her research focuses on advocating for Latin-American voices in classical music and she has received fellowship funding for this from the Society for American Music. She is a frequent lecturer and panelist on the topic of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the voice studio and serves as a member of the NATS DEI Task Force, co-founder of the Ibero-American Chapter of NATS, and organizer for the NATS Latinx/Hispanic Teachers Affinity Group. She is a previous Faculty-First Look Fellow at NYU Steinhardt and Future of Music Faculty Fellow at Cleveland Institute of Music. She is the co-founder of Meet the Opera, a series of free children’s educational workshops in partnership with Austin Opera and Austin Public Library.

As a lyric coloratura soprano, Guerrero has won numerous awards from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, National Opera Association, Opera Grand Rapids Vocal Competition, Naftzger Young Artist Competition, NATS Artist Awards, Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Houston Competition, Bel Canto Foundation, and two artist grants from the Koch Cultural Trust. A proponent of singing and teaching all vocal styles, Guerrero completed the Contemporary Commercial Music Vocal Pedagogy Institute at Shenandoah Conservatory. Guerrero is also an alumna of the NATS Intern Program. She is a member of the National Association for Teachers of Singing, Pan American Vocology Association, National Opera Association, Opera America, and National Association of Latino Arts and Culture.

Learn more at lilyguerrero.com.