University of Redlands
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Email this pageMelissa Tosh, Professor of Voice
Contact: Melissa_Tosh@Redlands.edu
(909) 748-8698 (Phone)
(909) 335-5183 (Fax)
Watchorn Hall, Room 208
B.M., M.A., California State University, Sacramento
D.M.A., University of Oregon
Melissa Denise Tosh has sung extensively in opera, operetta, oratorio, recital and musical comedy, in extended contracts with the Stadttheater Hildesheim and the Heidelberg Summer Castle Festivals. She has also performed in Italy, Belgium and Switzerland.
Dr. Tosh’s operatic and operetta roles have included lyric coloratura, mezzo, and soubrette leads in Le Nozze di Figaro, La Rondine, Rigoletto, Cosí fan Tutte, Lucia di Lammermoor, Die Entführung aus dem Seraglio, Suor Angelica, Werther, Martha, Die Verkaufte Braut, Albert Herring, Giro-flé, Giro-flá, Hänsel und Gretel, Signor Deluso, Die Fledermaus, Der Vogelhändler, Gräfin Mariza, Der Bettelstudent, The Magic Flute, The Merry Widow and Pirates of Penzance. Recently she has performed mezzo leads Amahl and the Night Visitors, Sister Angelica and The Medium.
Her musical comedy roles have included “Maria” in West Side Story, “Marian Paroo” in Music Man, “Julie Jordan” in Carousel, “Kathie” in The Student Prince, “Mona Kent” in Dames at Sea, “Tuptim” in The King and I and “Mother Abbess” in The Sound of Music.
After nine years of singing engagements in Europe, Melissa Tosh returned to the United States to complete her music degrees. While completing her Master’s Degree in Music, she spent a month as Artist-in-Residence at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, where she taught classical voice and staged Mozart’s one act opera Impresario. She next taught voice, as a Graduate Fellow at University of Oregon, where she earned her Doctorate in Vocal Performance and Music History.
She and her husband, tenor James Matranga, then moved to Ohio, where she taught as Assistant Professor of Voice, Pedagogy and Lyric Diction at Youngstown State University for three years.
Pleased to return to her home state of California, Dr. Tosh joined the faculty of the University of Redlands, School of Music, in 1999, where she has since taught Applied Voice and Voice Classes, Vocal Pedagogy and French, German and Italian Lyric Diction, Opera Workshop, and Graduate Seminars in German Lieder, Romanticism in Music, Being a Musician Scholar and French Mélodie.
Selected Courses
Applied Voice and Introduction to Voice
Romantic Music Literature
English/German/Italian/French & Diction
Opera Theatre Workshop
Becoming a Musician Scholar
French Mélodie