Alyson Shirk, D.M.A. comes to Pacific Fresno University having served as Director of Arts for the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore. Earning her doctorate in vocal performance from Shenandoah Conservatory in 2009, Alyson, lyric soprano, was awarded the Dean’s Graduate Scholar Award for excellence in scholarship for her dissertation “Mad Women in Opera: An Investigation of Madness and Selected Mad Scenes for Soprano”. In 2009, Alyson taught master classes and performed the Brahms’ Requiem with the Ho Chi Minh Symphony Orchestra in Vietnam. In 2010, she traveled to Buenos Aires to research and perform the music of Argentine composer Carlos Guastavino. Her Bryn Mawr and Children’s Chorus choirs have performed at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, The US State Department, and The Blair House. Alyson’s choirs performed at the International Kodály Symposium in Budapest and Kecskemét, Hungary in 2013. In addition to her work as a regional choral clinician and adjudicator, Alyson served as the founder and Artistic Director of the American Kodály Children’s Chorus. Alyson is the choir director of University High School in Fresno, California.
