Barbara Witham McCargar

Style: Opera; Folk; Classical; Pop; Musical Theatre

Title: Associate Professor Emerita of Music, Aquinas College

Bio: Barbara Witham McCargar's performing career has spanned five decades, from the Opera stage to Art Song recitals. As a soloist, she has given many recitals in concert halls and churches in addition to having been a featured singer with the Grand Rapids Symphony Pops, the Kalamazoo and Calvin [College] University Oratorio Societies, Lansing Lyric Opera, Opera Grand Rapids, the Grand Rapids Choir of Men and Boys, St. Cecilia Music [Society] Center, the Ann Arbor Cantata Singers, Lake Michigan College, Western Michigan University, and the College Music Society (University of Wisconsin-Madison). Her soprano voice has been heard in several regional venues, including Circle Theatre; Youth Opera USA (with composer Sanford Jones); Spectrum Theater; Frederik Meijer Gardens; DeVos Performance Hall; Kretschmer Recital Hall; Cathedral of Saint Andrew; Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp; GR Festival of the Arts; and the Nazareth Center, Kalamazoo. Ms. McCargar toured in the great churches and halls of Austria and Hungary as a member and soloist of the Chamber Choir of Grand Rapids. She recorded "Women's Work" (2005) for soprano and piano, at River City Studios, Ltd., an evolution of annual lecture recitals with her colleagues, pianists Mary Hurd and Catherine Williams, O.P. of Aquinas College, during Women's History Month. And, as a founding member of the vocal chant trio, Vox Angelica with Carol Sahakian and Gwendolyn Faasen, Ms. McCargar performed in concerts for mid-west regional conventions of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians (NPM) and as an Artist in Residence at the Cathedral of Saint Andrew, touring the sacred spaces of Spain and Portugal as featured artists with the Diocesan Choir of Grand Rapids, under the direction of Dr. Brandon Spence, and recording "Hildegard von Bingen - Chants of Heaven and Earth" (2003) in the Cathedral. The Hildegard Singers, featuring †Linn Maxwell Keller as Hildegard von Bingen, with sopranos Diane Penning, Lisa Walhout, and Ms. McCargar, presented the chants of Saint Hildegard of Bingen and plainchant in concert in the Chapel of Queen's College, Cambridge, England, and for the International Conference on Saint Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, Carmarthen Campus, 2013. CDs by the quartet are: Songs from the Abbey (2012); "O Greenest Branch" Songs of St. Hildegard of Bingen and Liturgical Chants" (2014); and "Veni, Veni Emmanuel - Christmas Carols and Chants from the Renaissance and the Middle Ages" (2015), all through Alto Productions and River City Studios, Ltd. The national NPM performance can be viewed at: HERE or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmZpimu9-S8&list=RDUmZpimu9-S8&start_radio=1&t=2556s Ms. McCargar earned a Bachelor of Music in Performance (Voice) from Aquinas College and a Master of Music in Voice with a secondary emphasis in Opera from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Further studies have embraced Contemporary Commercial Music pedagogy (Shenandoah University), opera at the American Institute of Musical Studies (Graz, Austria), Alexander Technique, and training to teach "What Every Musician Needs to Know About the Body" (WEM) as a member of the Association for Body Mapping Education (ABME). Her former voice teachers include: June Law [Marshall], Katherine Hilgenberg, Donna Harrison, and Stanley Kolk. She began her college voice teaching career in 1978 at Grand Rapids [Junior] Community College and has been teaching voice at Aquinas College since 1987, where she also chaired the music department for over 28 years, and is now Associate Professor Emerita of Music, with a focus on voice teaching informed by body mapping. She is a Cantor at the Cathedral of St. Andrew in the Diocese of Grand Rapids, and a freelance voice instructor, soloist (with a passion for music by women composers), member of Claripiavoce, and substitute church choir conductor. In her semi-retirement, Ms. McCargar is enjoying having more time to spend getting together with family, friends, and alumni, and volunteering her time at MOWWM, on the board of ABME, on the Music Education Preparations Standards Committee of the MI BOE, as a member of the Alumni Association of the UoM, and as a proofreader of the NPM Cantor Newsletter.

Voice Type: Soprano

Music Styles Taught: Opera; Folk; Classical; Pop; Musical Theatre

Availability: I am available as a performer; I am currently accepting private students; I offer lessons in a group environment; I am available as a clinician or presenter; I accept students through a college or university program

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