Dr. Nicholas Perna is Associate Professor and Director of Vocal Pedagogy at the University of Colorado Boulder. There, he runs the Berton Coffin Voice Lab and supervises graduate theses and dissertations in voice pedagogy. Perna was the 2025 Van L. Lawrence Fellow for research focusing on velopharyngeal opening in treble musical theater singers. He has publications in the Journal of Singing, the Journal of Voice, and VOICEPrints, and he authored a chapter in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook on Voice Pedagogy. A Presser Music Foundation awardee, he has presented research on four continents at events such as the Voice Foundation’s Symposium, the International Congress of Voice Teachers, the NATS National Conference, the PAVA Symposium, and the Physiology and Acoustics of Singing (PAS). Dr. Perna’s research areas include voice acoustics, nasality and the singing voice, online voice teaching, and vocal cross-training. Perna is a Pan American Vocology Association (PAVA) Recognized Vocologist. For nine seasons, Dr. Perna has been the co-host of the VocalFri Podcast (vocalfri.com), a vetted, cited, and trusted source for cutting-edge voice pedagogy and voice science information.
As an in-demand vocal cross-trainer, Perna’s students have appeared on stages throughout the world. Student successes include appearances on Broadway (Wicked, Waitress), regional theaters, and national and international tours (My Fair Lady, Shrek, The Sound of Music). His clients have won prestigious competitions, including the Lotte Lenya Foundation Grand Prize and the International Chinese Art Song Competition. Students have also been apprentice artists with prestigious summer festivals, including The Santa Fe Opera and Glimmerglass Opera. Additionally, he is a sought-after mentor of fellow voice teachers. Those clients have earned tenure-track and adjunct positions at universities, served as NATS Interns (4), and run successful private studios of classical and musical theater singers.
Perna’s tenor voice has been hailed by the Houston Chronicle as “an impressive sound,” and the South Florida Sun Sentinel praised his “emotionally driven performance.” He has appeared multiple times in recent seasons with Opera Mississippi and has been a finalist for the American Prize for Men in Opera. Perna was twice selected as a Santa Fe Opera Apprentice Artist singer. Equally adept on operatic and musical theater stages, roles to his credit include Don José in Carmen and Rodolfo in La Bohème, as well as Ravenal in Show Boat and Archibald Craven in The Secret Garden. Symphonic soloist appearances include Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.
Perna holds graduate degrees from the University of Miami Frost School of Music and the University of Houston Moores School of Music. Previous faculty positions include Mississippi College, West Virginia University, and New World School of the Arts. During his tenure in Mississippi, Perna was a voice research associate at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. He has also served on the faculty of notable continuing education programs such as Donald G. Miller’s Singing Voice Science Workshop and the Acoustic Vocal Pedagogy Workshop. Perna is currently Vice President for Outreach for the National Association of Teachers of Singing (2022–2026) and was recently elected President-Elect.
