Expertise
Lydia Howery is delighted to be joining the adjunct voice faculty at Florida Gulf Coast University’s Bower School of Music. She previously taught in the voice department at Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania and has performed all over the northeast in various concert and operatic works. Howery created the role of Daphne in Jordan Farrar’s opera The Day Boy and the Night Girl with the After Dinner Opera Company at Symphony Space in New York City. Previously, with the ADOC, she performed the role of the Wife in Seymour Barab’s Everyone Has to be Free, to NY Times acclaim. While in Erie, Howery regularly appeared with the Erie Opera Theatre in such roles as the Mother in Amahl and the Night Visitors, Maddalena in Rigoletto, and Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus. She also appeared with the D’Angelo Opera Theatre as Dame Quickly in Falstaff and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. Howery is equally at home on the concert stage, appearing as a guest soloist with the Edinboro Chamber Players, Erie Philharmonic Chorus, and Pennsylvania Chamber Symphony in various works, such as Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass and Handel’s Messiah. She has also given various recitals; one being a concert she designed and performed of American Art Song entitled Seasons of Change, which she performed at Mercyhurst and her alma mater.
Howery holds a Master of Music degree in Voice Performance from The Boston Conservatory and a Bachelor of Science degree in Music Education from Erskine College. While at Erskine, she performed numerous solos in concert there, at Clemson, and at churches around the state. As a senior, she also received the prestigious Isabel Boyd Phillips Award for excellence in music. Some of Howery’s highlights from Boston were appearing as Miss Penelope Newkirk in Help, Help the Globolinks, Second Knitter in A Game of Chance, and numerous choral performances.
Recently, Howery has joined Gulfshore Opera’s music outreach program as a Harmony Choir teacher at PACE Center for Girls. She is also a member of GO Divas, Gulfshore Opera’s exciting new, all female, vocal group performing a large range of repertoire from Bach to the Beatles. Howery also holds a position as an alto core singer with the Symphonic Chorale of Southwest Florida.