Gayle Shay

Gayle Shay is an Associate Professor of Lyric Theatre Arts and Director of the Vanderbilt Opera Theatre at the Blair School of Music, Vanderbilt University. She is a distinguished performer and stage director with an international career spanning opera, musical theater, theatre, and oratorio across the United States, Canada, Europe, and China.

Her educational background includes:

• B.A. from Luther College
• M.M. from the University of Maryland
• D.M.A. from the University of Colorado

Dr. Shay is renowned for her work in art song theatre and interdisciplinary performance. She has collaborated with leading artists such as composers John Harbison and Jake Heggie, and pianists Martin Katz and Graham Johnson. She has been a member of the International Voice Workshop at the Banff Centre and co-directed the SONGFIRE Art Song Theatre Apprenticeship at the Vancouver International Song Institute (VISI), where she also premiered three of her five original, fully-staged Art Song Theatre works.

Her artistic research emphasizes community engagement through music theatre. Notably, she developed a curriculum at Vanderbilt that trains artists in community-based practices, culminating in the collaborative work Unapologetically ME, created with survivors of domestic abuse at the Mary Parrish Center in Nashville.

She is also actively involved in summer festivals, joining the faculty of the Prague Summer Nights Young Artists Music Festival in 2018, where she teaches acting and directs Mozart operas in the historic Estates Theatre in Prague.

Dr. Shay’s professional stage direction credits include engagements with:

• Wolf Trap Opera
• Maryland Opera Studio
• Opera/Omaha
• Des Moines Drama Workshop
• Dorian Opera Theatre
• Nashville Opera
• Tun Wang People’s Theatre (Guangzhou, China)
• Prague Summer Nights Music Festival

She has performed with numerous companies including Washington (D.C.) Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera Guild, Colorado Lyric Theater, and Nautilus New Music Theatre Company. She is also a regular performer on the Songfest Art Song Concert Series in Malibu, California.

Her artistic leadership extends to creating original works such as That Way Goes the Game, Seaworthy, Once, Babylon, and Can You Hear Me?, which have been produced in Vancouver, Nashville, and Indianapolis.