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Charlene Santoni

Instructor, Voice

Voice Studies

Education

  • PhD, University of Toronto
  • MMus, University of Toronto
  • DiplMus, University of Manitoba
  • BMus, Western University

Biography

Charlene Santoni received her Master’s Degree in Vocal Pedagogy and her Ph.D. in Music and Health Science with a specialization in voice from The University of Toronto. Her doctoral research explored ways of influencing oral-nasal balance in speech and singing in typical speakers and speakers with hypernasality. Her work earned publication in the Journal of Voice, Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica, and The International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology. She has also authored several chapters on music-based speech and language rehabilitation featured in the Oxford Handbook of Music and the Brain, and the Handbook of Neurologic Music Therapy (2nd ed.) for Oxford University Press. In 2014, she was awarded The National Association of Teachers of Singing Voice Pedagogy Award.

Alongside academia, Charlene’s operatic performance career has included appearances with Edmonton Opera, Pacific Opera Victoria, Tapestry Opera, The Saskatoon Symphony, Soundstreams Canada, The Canadian Sinfonietta, Off Centre Music Salon, The National Arts Centre Orchestra, The Tanglewood Music Centre, and The Boston Pops. In 2010, she performed at the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad and at Toronto’s Nuit Blanche Festival, the latter to which was awarded a Scotiabank People's Choice Award.

Charlene is currently a sessional voice instructor the University of Toronto, where she concurrently teaches a course in Clinical Voice Pedagogy. She is also an assistant faculty member at The R.F. Unkefer Academy of Neurologic Music Therapy, where she offers lectures on singing-inspired voice therapy techniques like vocal intonation therapy®, therapeutic singing®, and oral & motor respiratory exercises®.