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McKenzie Music Studio and Productions . |
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About the Instructors
Yarts/Studio 691
is a new facet to Ms. McKenzie’s career, where she is using all her skills to help build the Arts program at the Wyckoff
YMCA of New Jersey. It is a wonderful thing to be a part of the growth of Y-Arts having stage-directed from the inception
of it’s community theater in 2008: Scrooge, the Musical,
Beauty and the Beast, King and I, Wizard of Oz, Annie, and
most recently Sound of Music. In the Fall of 2010, she was instrumental in forming the new Opera company OPERA @ 691, where she directed and performed in Gianni Schicchi. Summer 2011, the
brand new workshop HATS OFF TO BROADWAY will be apart of the after hours conservatory. Featuring training
in choreography, voice and acting withone of the asst directors of Radio City, and the New Mexico Dance Artistic Director
of National Dance Institute of New Mexico, Tim Santos, where Reegan taught voice during the summer session of 2009, and her
colleague and regular musical director, Georgianna Pappas. Summer 2004, Ms. McKenzie made her musical theater debut in
Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Home of the International Mostly Mozart
Festival. Bartlesville Children’s Musical
Theater’s production: PETER PAN, was considered by far the most ambitious and successful of their five years, featuring over 80 children, She
has returned in to direct BEAUTY AND THE BEAST(06), HIGH SCHOOL
MUSICAL(08), and THE MUSIC MAN(10). Spring of ’10 Ms. McKenzie directed
her fifth production with Boheme Opera: MADAMA BUTTERFLY. Her Trenton debut, LUCIA DI LAMMERMOORE, she received critical acclaim as did her second production, CARMEN. In
CARMEN she integrated a New Jersey – based professional children’s chorus ¾ Passagio
Chorale ¾ in their show-stopping cameo. Including
the ’04 CAVALLERIA-PAGLIACCI, and AIDA her shows have been called “crisp, pure theater, and innovative while keeping the integrity
of the pieces performed…brilliant, provoking and mesmerizing.” A veteran soprano, Reegan has toured extensively
with San Francisco Opera Center’s Western Opera, performed with Tulsa Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, Pocket Opera, Liederkranz Opera Theater and performed with other tri-state and regional companies. Her Lincoln Center debut was Rossini’s MOSE’ with the late world-famous bass, JEROME HINES and Ars Musica. As a fellow with Hines’
OPERA MUSIC THEATER INTERNATIONAL, Ms. McKenzie made her Bolshoi Opera debut in I
AM THE WAY, being featured in the role of “Martha”
on the recent CD recording of it. As a singer, she won many competitions: Metropolitan Regional
Finalist, Liederkranz Foundation, Association for Verismo Opera. She is a busy instructor, dramatic coach and principle teacher with McKENZIE-DELAVAN MUSIC STUDIO & PRODUCTIONS featuring
the Musical Theater Performance Workshop. Many of her students are starring in school productions all over New Jersey,
from middle school to college. Some have gone on to be featured in various Broadway tours, three have had
regular features on the soaps. Her motto is ‘DARE TO DREAM’ and her modus-operendis is giving students tools that create confidence
and self reliance that will serve them in the arts as well as any career they might choose. Ms. Delavan recently moved to NJ from
Tulsa, OK, where she was an Asso. Prof. of Voice at Oral Roberts University. Her many years of experience in college teaching
include voice, opera theater, music theory for Elementary teachers, vocal pedagogy and language diction. She holds a
BMEd from Southwest Texas State University, MM in choral conducting with a voice concentration from Westminster Choir College
and completed a doctoral residency at North Texas State University. During her tenure as a college professor she had a dozen students win the District Metropolitan Opera Auditions, numerous
placements in NATS, as well as other prestigious competitions all over America. Among her many students, 3 are Metropolitan
Opera singers and several are on the roster of New York City Opera, several with international careers, among them her son
Mark. She and daughter, Reegan McKenzie, have
recently incorporated the McKenzie-Delavan Studio as well as Ms. Delavan embarking on a new phase of her career, which includes
teaching young students as a part of the studio, playing keyboard in the band for Hoffman-LaRoche Player’s recent production
of Bye Bye Birdie. With Ms. McKenzie, she co-produced the Musical Theater Performance Workshop production
of Sound of Music. She presently has two books in publication stage: ‘Letters from the Wilderness’
and ‘Talented, Bored or Dis-eased: My Case for the Arts’. |
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Piano Lessons, Lodi, NJ