Barbara Rondelli Perry, lyric soprano, Professor of Voice at the university, accepted an invitation to join the faculty of music in 1975, after a notable career in Europe, South Africa, and the United States. She is a graduate of Pittsburg State University, Kansas, and the Royal Academy of Music in London, England, where she was a Fulbright scholar for two years, studying with the celebrated British soprano Dame Eva Turner.
Highlights of her career include: Prizewinner in the International Bavarian Radio Competition in Munich; Diploma Winner in the International Tschaikovsky Competition in Moscow; the title role of Madama Butterfly with the New York City Opera and the Honolulu Opera; soprano soloist in New York’s Carnegie Hall in Bach’s B minor Mass, the St. John Passion, and the St. Matthew Passion, Helmuth Rilling conducting. Barbara can be heard as soloist on CD with the Bach Collegium Stuttgart in Bach Cantata No. 19, and on the Colosseum Label with “Faun and Shepherdess” (Three Songs with Orchestra) of Stravinsky (sung in Russian) and Harald Genzmer’s Jimenez Cantata for soprano, chorus, and orchestra.
Barbara has performed more than 40 major operatic roles, and just as many major oratorio roles, in Germany, the United States, and South Africa, in addition to many song recitals. Her favorite operatic roles, among others, include Madama Butterfly, Marguerite in Faust, Mimi in La Boheme, Aminta in Richard Strauss’ The Silent Woman, Rosina in the Barber of Seville, Elsa in Lohengrin, and Sieglinde in Wagner’s Die Walkuere. Her vast repertoire includes music spanning the Renaissance to the most avant-garde.
She was chosen for the “Meretorious Achievement Award” from Pittsburg State University, conferred in May 2000. Recent performances include a solo recital “Songs of the British Isles”(England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales), opera arias with the university orchestra, and the Voices of Music Concert, featuring Barbara and her students. On the Annual Spring Festival of New Music, she always performs music of the visiting composer, or recently composed music of other American composers. Every year the Barbara Rondelli van der Merwe Scholarship for outstanding achievement in vocal performance is awarded to a student majoring in either vocal performance or music education.
Barbara is proud to be the teacher of so many wonderful students over the years at UT, and has sponsored many of them in various state, regional, and national competitions where her students have had great success, as well as successful operatic careers, and careers in music teaching.