On Saturday, November 5, University of Nebraska-Omaha voice faculty, Shelby VanNordstrand, presented at the National College Music Society Conference in Indianapolis, IN. Her presentation “Is Opera Sustainable?” was presented at the conference in the lightning talk session.

On Saturday, November 14, Shelby presented at the Central Regional NATS Conference at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbounais, IL. Together with co-presenters Jodi Goble (Iowa State University), and Anne Harley (Scripps College, LA), their session “Russian for non-Russians” delivered an approach to the Cyrillic alphabet that is singer focused, mindful of a lyric approach to diction, and friendly to all learning styles (visual, aural, kinesthetic). This session introduced basic tenets of Russian diction and helped attendees gain confidence in their ability to learn and assign Russian song repertoire to be performed in the original language.