Rebecca Karpoff

Department of Drama

Associate Teaching Professor, Musical Theater
Coordinator of Vocal Instruction

Rebecca Karpoff

Syracuse Stage/Department of Drama Theater Complex
820 East Genesee Street
Syracuse, NY 13210-1508




Soprano Rebecca Karpoff is coordinator of vocal instruction in the Department of Drama, where she teaches private voice, Musical Theater Practicum, and Advanced Musical Theater Repertoire. She also teaches Vocal Pedagogy in the Setnor School of Music.

Karpoff has been featured as soloist with the Syracuse and Baltimore Symphony Orchestras, the Rochester Philharmonic, the Rochester Oratorio Society, and Eastman School Symphony Orchestra under conductors Helmuth Rilling, Mark Elder, Kazuyoshi Akiyama, Daniel Hege, and William Henry Curry in works of Szymanowski, Mozart, Handel, Bach, Schubert, Haydn, and Strauss. Operatic roles include the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Rosina in The Barber of Seville, the title role in Puccini's Suor Angelica and, with Syracuse Opera, Dorabella in Così fan tutte and Zerlina in Don Giovanni.

As recitalist and chamber musician, Karpoff has been heard at such venues as the Ravinia, Aspen, and Skaneateles Festivals and Merkin Hall in New York City. She has sung world premieres by Augusta Read Thomas and Samuel Adler (both later broadcast over public radio) as well as large works by Schoenberg, Boulez, Harbison, Varèse, and Ginastera.

As artistic ambassador for the United States Information Agency, Karpoff toured six countries in Europe and Africa, giving recitals and master classes. She is a past prizewinner in competitions sponsored by the Bel Canto Foundation, the Society of American Musicians, the National Association of Teachers of Singing and the National Federation of Music Clubs, and Eastman’s Kneisel German Lieder competition.

Formerly on the faculties of the Eastman School of Music and the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point, Karpoff holds the doctor of musical arts degree from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with Carol Webber and Dale Moore. There she was the recipient of the Graue Fellowship for Excellence in Musicology and won the University of Rochester’s Curtis Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student.

Karpoff holds bachelor's degrees in both voice and economics from Northwestern University, where she worked with Elizabeth Fischer. She has also studied at the Aspen Music Festival, the Steans Institute of the Ravinia Festival, and Tanglewood and has sung in public master classes with Tom Krause, Thomas Hampson, Christoph Eschenbach, Ralf Gothoni, Jorma Hynninen, Reri Grist, Janet Bookspan, and Geoffrey Parsons.

Education

  • D.M.A., M.M., Eastman School of Music

  • B.M., Northwestern University

Expertise

Voice, vocal pedagogy, and musical theater