Nicole Asel

Biography

Nicole Asel, D.M.A., mezzo-soprano, is an assistant professor of music in the voice area at Colorado State University. Prior to CSU, Dr. Asel served as an assistant professor of voice at Sam Houston State University. A finalist in the 2010 Rocky Mountain Regional Metropolitan Opera Council Auditions, she is a devoted operatic and concert performer and recitalist. She has sung with Opera Carolina, Central City Opera, Opera Fort Collins, Greensboro Opera, Long Leaf Opera, The Martina Arroyo Foundation and Colorado Light Opera and with the Piccolo Festival del Friuli Venezia Giulia in Friuli, Italy.

After working with Mark Adamo, she was selected by the composer to represent his opera Little Women in the G. Schirmer New Opera Sampler CD in the role of Jo March. She has collaborated in new opera workshops with some of the North America’s most accomplished living composers, singing the role of Elizabeth Bennett in Kirke Mechem’s Pride and Prejudice, and the role of Carrie Madenda in Sister Carrie by the Grammy Award winning compositional duo Robert Aldridge and Hershel Garfein. In addition to new operatic repertoire, Dr. Asel has a passion for contemporary art song, including the intersection of popular and classical music in particular. Scholarly works include the history and tradition of cabaret song in the early Twentieth Century and the music of living American song composers Ricky Ian Gordon and Rufus Wainwright.

An advocate of body wellness in the voice studio, Dr. Asel is passionate about bringing her experience with yoga, body mapping, and the Alexander technique, as well as scholarship in voice pedagogy into her teaching. She is an active member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) organization where her students have been selected as finalists and won in local and national competitions. Her students have gone on to receive master’s degrees in voice performance, choral conducting, and opera direction. Dr. Asel also enjoys her work as a guest adjudicator and clinician for vocal competitions.

She was previously a faculty member at the University of Texas Brownsville and The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley where she taught applied voice, diction, and directed the award winning opera company. She holds a D.M.A. in Voice Performance and Pedagogy from The University of Colorado at Boulder, a M.M. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a B.M. from Ithaca College.