Originally from the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, Dr. Laura Wiebe is a versatile singer, conductor, pianist, and pedagogue. She currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music in the Swinney Conservatory of Music at Central Methodist University in Fayette, Missouri. At Central Methodist, Dr. Wiebe conducts the Conservatory Singers and teaches applied voice, music history, aural skills, and choral arranging. In addition, she serves as a staff pianist and singer at Missouri United Methodist Church in Columbia, Missouri. Dr. Wiebe previously served as Director of Choral Activities at Indian Hills Community College and adjunct instructor at Coe College, both in Iowa. Dr. Wiebe’s solo engagements as a mezzo-soprano include performances with the Missouri Symphony; the Marshall Philharmonic Orchestra; the Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra; and Ensemble: Périphérie. She has performed on faculty recitals at Central Methodist University, Lincoln University, Indian Hills Community College, and Coe College. A jazz singer since high school, Dr. Wiebe has also performed with a variety of jazz artists and ensembles throughout the Midwest, including the Des Moines Big Band, and recently as a featured artist on the Missouri United Methodist Concert Series. Dr. Wiebe is a candidate for the internationally recognized Dalcroze certificate through the Dalcroze School of the Rockies in Denver, Colorado. She is especially interested in applications of the Dalcroze approach to solo and ensemble singing. Dr. Wiebe's other professional and research interests include choral and vocal pedagogy, and the revival of Renaissance choral music in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century England. In 2011, she was awarded T. Anne Cleary International Dissertation Fellowship from the University of Iowa for research in Oxford and London. Dr. Wiebe received DMA in Choral Conducting and Pedagogy from the University of Iowa under Timothy Stalter; an MM in Choral Conducting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison under Beverly Taylor; and a BA in music with honors from North Park University (Chicago), where she studied conducting with Tom Zelle and Rollo Dilworth and piano with Kuang-Hao Huang, Dora Alanen, and Kimberly Schmidt. Dr. Wiebe is a member of the American Choral Directors Association; the National Association for Music Education; the Missouri Music Educators Association; the National Association of Teachers of Singing; and the Dalcroze Society of America.
