Music | Theatre | Film | Alumni Reception | Seminole Club of New York

WANDA BRISTER-RACHWAL

WANDA BRISTER-RACHWAL, Assistant Professor of Voice, joined The Florida State University faculty in 2003, following positions at Baylor University and the University of Arizona. She has sung in forty of the United States and eleven European countries, and has performed more than forty operatic roles with opera companies such as Opera Orchestra of New York, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Baltimore Opera, New Orleans Opera, Opera Theater of Saint Louis, New York Opera Ensemble, Annapolis Opera, Pittsburgh Opera Theater, and Connecticut Grand Opera. In the summer of 2006, Dr. Brister joined the Schlern (Italy) International Music Festival as artist/faculty-in-residence.

Dr. Brister has been soloist with orchestras throughout the United States and has sung under the batons of such conductors as Michael Tilson Thomas, John Rutter, John Nelson, Philippe Entremont, Arthur Fagen, Chris Nance and Leopold Hager. She sang hundreds of concerts with the New York Vocal Arts Ensemble, a solo quartet, from 1986 until 1994, and she has performed at some of the great halls in the United States, including eight solo recitals at Carnegie Hall and concerts at Avery Fisher Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and the Kennedy Center.

Dr. Brister holds degrees from the University of Southern Mississippi and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, and completed her Doctor of Musical Arts at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, in 2004 under the direction of Vocal Literature scholar, Carol Kimball.

Wanda Brister maintains a personal website at www.wandabrister.com