via ccminstitute.com:
Each year, the CCM Institute honors a legendary figure in voice pedagogy. Mary Saunders-Barton is a pioneer of CCM voice training. Alumni from her studio at Penn State University can be heard performing on Broadway and in theatre around the world. She developed her own unique approach to cross-training singers and created the popular course and DVDs, “Bel Canto Can Belto.” For her significant success as a pedagogue, her kind mentoring of thousands of performers and teachers, and her tirelss work to bring credibility to musical theatre voice pedagogy, we present Mary Saunders-Barton with the 2018 CCM Institute Lifetime Achievement Award.
Mary Saunders Barton is a Penn State Professor Emeritus, currently residing in NY where she maintains a musical theatre voice studio for professional performers. Mary received a Master’s degree in French language and literature from Middlebury College and the Sorbonne, Paris. While in Paris, she studied French art song with the great baritone, Pierre Bernac. She is an unapologetic Francophile. Her own performing career spanned twenty years and included Broadway, off Broadway, regional, film and television credits. Her one-woman show “Stop-Time” played to sell-out houses in New York City.
While at Penn State, she served as head of voice instruction for the BFA in musical theatre and created an MFA in musical theatre voice pedagogy to meet the growing demand for voice teachers who specialize in vernacular techniques. In this and recent seasons graduates of the BFA program have been seen on Broadway in Wicked, Mamma Mia, Lion King, Pippin, The Book of Mormon, Newsies, Kinky Boots, Bandstand, A Bronx Tale and Beautiful among others,and in many national tours and regional productions. Graduates of the MFA Program have gone on to teaching positions at universities in Massachusetts, Nevada, Virginia and the Netherlands and are contributing to the profession in performance, writing and research.
Mary is frequently invited to present master classes and workshops for singers and teachers of singing at universities and voice conferences in the U.S. and abroad. She has been a featured presenter for the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), the National Opera Association (NOA), the Voice Foundation Symposium, the New York Singing Teachers Association (NYSTA) and the Musical Theater Educators Alliance (MTEA) She was the keynote musical theatre speaker at the 2013 International Congress of Voice Teachers (ICVT) in Brisbane, Australia. She has served twice as a master teacher for the NATS Intern Program.
Mary has co-authored a book, “Cross-Training in the Voice Studio: A Balancing Act” with colleague Norman Spivey. She has written chapters for the NATS publication “So You Want to Sing CCM” edited by Matthew Hoch and for the second edition of “A Spectrum of Voices” by Elizabeth Blades. Mary has produced two video tutorials, Bel Canto/Can Belto: Teaching Women to Sing Musical Theatre and What About the Boys?