Associate Professor
Interim Vocal Arts Area Coordinator
Voice
School of Music
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803-2504
P: 225.578.2641
F: 225.578.2562
E: lsims@lsu.edu

Loraine Sims (Associate Professor of Voice and Interim Vocal Arts Area Coordinator) has achieved critical-acclaim for her “vibrant, bell-like soprano” as well as her “warm intimacy, engaging passion and casual artistry.” Recently she was an Invited Performer at the 52nd National Conference of the National Opera Association (NOA) on the Kurt Weill Cabaret Program, New York, NY and she also presented a Guest Artist Recital on the Musical Arts Concert Series at Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant, OK with Jan Grimes, piano. Other recent performances include appearances as Soprano Soloist with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra, Handel Messiah, the Southeast Kansas Symphony, Brahms Requiem, and the Louisiana Sinfonietta, Berlioz “D’amour lardente flamme.” Ms. Sims is an active recitalist whose voice has been described as “remarkably versatile, ranging from delicate lyricism to dramatic power,” and her repertoire includes a broad range of songs and arias from the Baroque through Contemporary periods as well as a variety of selections from the American Musical Theater tradition.

Honors for Ms. Sims include the national finals in the National Opera Association Vocal Competition and the international semifinals in the prestigious Concert Artist Guild Competition. Her early vocal training is from Southeastern Oklahoma State University and Southwest Texas State University, and she holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Vocal Performance from Louisiana State University.

Dr. Sims continues a successful teaching career as an Associate Professor of Voice at Louisiana State University. Her prior faculty positions were at Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, Kansas, Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana, and Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant, Oklahoma. She is a member of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), and the current Louisiana Governor of NATS.

Recent performances include recitals and/or master classes at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, Ireland, the Conservatory of Music and Drama at the Dublin Institute of Technology, Minnesota State University, Gustavus Adolphus College (Minnesota), University of Mississippi, Drury University (Missouri), the University of Southern Mississippi, and Southeastern Oklahoma State University.

Upcoming performances include an appearance in April 2008 in the role of Miss Ellen in Intimations, a One-Act Opera by Dinos Constantinides with the Louisiana Sinfonietta. She has also received invitations to present "Practical Applications for the Spectrogram in the Voice Studio: A Demonstration," at the 2007 concurrent National Conference of the College Music Society (CMS) and the Association for Technology in Music Instruction (ATMI) to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah in November 2007 and also at the 2007 Southern Regional Conference of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) to be held in Oxford, Mississippi.