Mark Tempesta comes to the College of Music as Assistant Professor of Voice and Vocal Pedagogy. He holds degrees in voice performance and physics from Oberlin College and Boston University and will receive his Doctorate of Musical Arts in Voice Pedagogy from New England Conservatory this May. For the past two years, Mr. Tempesta has taught and managed voice pedagogy at New England Conservatory. His own research areas have included comparing the laryngeal gestures and vocal fold vibrational patterns of contemporary style singers and classical singers, and how these overlaps can be used to enhance student learning outcomes; exploring small timescale acoustics and how they can inform our understanding of the physical action of the vocal folds at onset; and the effect of meditation on motor learning in musical contexts. He is also passionate about enabling voice students to do their own research and has helped guide student projects on topics ranging from the effects of hormone replacement therapy on registration and resonance in trans voices, to the effects of vocal training on breathing patterns in speech and daily life.
As a performer, Mr. Tempesta has appeared in mainstage roles with Sarasota, Odyssey, St. Petersburg and Shreveport operas, Pittsburgh Festival Opera, Opera Company of Middlebury and Boston Metro Opera. Professional tenor roles and covers have included Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, Gherman in Pique Dame, Tony in West Side Story, Paolino in Il Matrimonio Segreto, Young Jim Thompson in Glory Denied, Father Grenville in Dead Man Walking, Malcolm in Verdi’s Macbeth, Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas and Loge in Das Rheingold. Mr. Tempesta spent part of his career as a baritone, with roles including Count Danilo Danilovitch in The Merry Widow, Il Conte Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, and Sharpless, Yamadori. the Bonze, and the Imperial Commissioner in Madama Butterfly.
Most recently, he has appeared in concerts with the Boston Wagner Society, singing extended scenes as Siegmund from Die Walküre, and in several roles with NEC Opera. In the season leading up to the Covid-19 Pandemic, he appeared with St. Petersburg Opera in Madama Butterfly and The Merry Widow, and in Odyssey Opera’s production of Rossini’s Elisabetta D’Inghilterra, which although physically cancelled in March 2020, became one of the first operatic works released to the public during the pandemic through releasing the dress rehearsal recording made just before the lockdown. In the 2018-2019 season, Mark was a Resident Artist at Shreveport Opera where he performed both leading roles on the mainstage, and in outreach operas for more than 30,000 children throughout the Arklatex (Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas) area. In 2018, Mark was a Resident Artist in the inaugural season of Jane Eaglen's Mastersinger Program for Young Dramatic Voices where he performed and covered leading Strauss and Wagner roles. He also received the Outstanding Performer Award at the Metropolitan International Music Competition the same year. Mr. Tempesta has also been an Apprentice Artist at Sarasota Opera, a Young Artist at Opera Company of Middlebury and has recorded as a tenor soloist with Navona Records.
