Robert Engelhart is associate professor of music at Northern Michigan University, located in Michigan’s beautiful Upper Peninsula on the shores of Lake Superior. Since 1986 Rob has taught studio voice and diction and served as musical director and conductor for musical theatre productions. As director of the opera program, he founded The Superior Light Opera Association in 2004 to provide community and regional support for the department’s yearly opera production. He has written and arranged music for several successful musicals, including Haywire (1995), which was chosen as a winner of the American College Theatre Festival and performed at the Kennedy Center in April, 1996. He is an active member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing and a frequent vocal and choral adjudicator. A tenor, Rob performs regular as a recitalist and soloist with choral ensembles. In 1993 he was performing fellow at The Bach Aria Festival in Stoney Brook, New York. He holds Ph.D and M.A. degrees from (“The”) Ohio State University and a B.M. degree from Capital University.

Rob’s fascination with movement and music spans 30 years. He met Barbara Conable in 1977 when he was enrolled in Bill Conable’s Alexander Technique class at Ohio State. For several years he studied the Technique privately and attended seminars with both Barbara and Bill, highlighted by regular visits of the amazing Marjorie Barstow to OSU. Bill Conable served on the committee for his dissertation, An electromygraphic study of preparatory set in singing as influenced by the Alexander Technique (1989); Barbara served as consultant and Alexander teacher for a group of test subjects in the study. He has organized regular Alexander workshops in Marquette with visiting teachers, including Dale Beaver, Donna Doellinger, and Patricia Smolens.

Rob began training as an Andover Educator in 2002 and was certified by Barbara in 2006. At NMU he teaches the principles of body-mapping in his course Movement for Musicians. Beginning in the summer of 2007 Rob will be offering the course What Every Musician Needs to Know about the Body at various times in Marquette. He is particularly interested in providing seminars and in-service presentations to public school music educators in the upper Great Lakes area.

The smartest thing Rob has done so far is to marry his wife Roberta back in 1975. They are the proud parents of two (just about) adult sons.