School of Music

Paula Rockwell - Biographical Information

Education

• Opera School, Artist Diploma (Vocal Performance) University of Toronto
• BAM (Vocal Performance) Acadia University,

Biographical Information

Mezzo-soprano, Paula Rockwell, has been steeped in musical projects, performances and music festivals in her home province Nova Scotia, Canada, and the United States. She teaches Applied Voice, Diction for Singers, Scene Studies and History of Musical Theatre at her alma mater, Acadia University, and created productions for Acadia’s School of Music Singing Theatre Production Ensemble.  She has been featured on several recordings and co-produced her debut CD entitled Fleeting Melodies, a collection of 20th century art songs and arias.

Paula has taken on several operatic roles since graduating from University of Toronto and has performed with symphony orchestras across the country and the United States. As a community contributor, she has performed for many fundraisers, including Music for Haiti, Women Only at Pier 21 and the annual Opera Nova Scotia’s Opera Valentine. Paula is heard every summer giving masterclasses, vocal warm-up sessions and a recital in Lyman, New Hampshire at The Ogontz Choral Symposium. She adjudicates music festivals on the Provincial and National level and gives clinics/masterclasses on the topic of vocal pedagogy, interpretation, and stage craft. Acadia’s School of Music Lecture & Concert Series premiered Paula’s sabbatical project entitled Letters from Home, based on letters

from her great grandmother to her maternal grandmother (circa 1941-1961) for which she created the script, photo projections and original music. Other projects include a CD of original works entitled Unwrapped…finally surfacing and a music video, I’m on My Way Home, released on Vimeo in November 2020.

She directed a Chamber Music Workshop class of the Canadian/Acadian musical odyssey Pélagie, written by Canadian composer Allen Cole, which was performed at Acadia’s Denton Auditorium. In 2019, she performed the role of Lucy, the Beggar Woman, in Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd and in 2021 as Signora Nacarelli in Adam Guettel’s Light in the Piazza with the Wolfville Theatre Collective at the Al Whittle Theatre, Wolfville, NS. She made her debut as music director and the role of Yente with Stage Prophets Theatre Company’s production of Fidder on the Roof in May 2019 and relived the role in November 2019 at Halifax’s Spatz Theatre. She was the music director for Stage Prophet’s 20th Anniversary Revue in 2022, Jesus Christ Superstar in 2023, Music Man in 2024 and will be music director and pat of the creative team for Wizard of Oz in 2025. Other performances were with Open Waters Music Festival in Halifax in Sandy Moore’s song cycle Vox Humana poetry by Nova Scotian writer Alex Pierce. She performed her Letters from Home one-woman show for Opera Nova Scotia’s May 2024 production, at The Whittle Theatre in Wolfville, the Yarmouth Historical Society and was invited to perform with the Bridgewater Fire Department Band in an original show entitled Operation Goosepool (WW2 songs & stories.)