Faculty and Staff
Melissa A. Shallberg MM
Founder & Music Director, Iowa Festival Singers
Iowa
Melissa Shallberg is originally from Mason City, Iowa — the town on which Meredith Willson based River City for The Music Man. After brief study at Luther College she graduated from Iowa State University with a degree in Music Education, continuing voice and conducting study at St. John’s University, the UMKC Conservatory, and Baker University. She completed a Master’s Degree in Vocal Pedagogy at the University of Kansas. She is a member of the Voice Care Network and has completed summer studies with the Network in Minnesota.
She has been heard as soloist in Orff’s Carmina Burana, Handel’s Messiah, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Mozart’s Solemn Vespers, and Rutter’s Requiem. Stage roles include Brigadoon, The Mikado, and Die Zauberflöte. In 2002 Paul Horsley of The Kansas City Star wrote that she “sang O Holy Night with a thrilling crystal-clear voice that never cloyed.”
She was a member of the William Baker Festival Singers from 1999–2011, Associate Music Director from 2002–2011, and Executive Associate Music Director of the Choral Foundation from 2009–2011, appearing frequently as a soloist with the Festival Singers and with the Summer Singers of Atlanta and Kansas City. Named a Fellow of the Institute for Healthy Singing in 2015, she is Founder & Music Director of NordKor in Iowa and of the Iowa Festival Singers, and Adjunct Professor of Music at Waldorf University. She has served as Executive Secretary of the Board of Trustees since 2019.