NAOKO  SUGA
     music studio

Ms. Suga has worked as a vocal coach/repetiture with Kentucky Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, and the Boulder Opera Company.  

She has worked under such conductors as Steven Crawford, Richard Buckley, Joseph Mechavich, and Kelly Kuo.  In 2011, she was appointed music director for Opera Iowa, and was a member of the music staff in Des Moines Metro Opera’s 2011 festival season. 

 

She has also been on staff at festivals and summer programs such as Opera in the Ozarks, Land of Enchantment Opera Institute, and Des Moines Metro Opera. 

 

Ms. Suga received her Master’s degree in Collaborative Piano from the University of Colorado at Boulder under the tutelage of Anne Epperson and Mutsumi Moteki, and a Bachelor’s degree in solo piano from the University of California, Los Angeles. Participation in summer festivals include the Music Academy of the West, Brevard Music Festival, the University of Miami School of Music at Salzburg.

 

Ms Naoko is currently an Andover Educator Trainee, pursuing a training certificate in Body Mapping (http://www.bodymap.org)

 

Ms. Suga specializes in working with pre-college and collegiate singers. From 2011-2014, she worked as a freelancer and a staff member at the University of Colorado Boulder where her responsibilities included playing for lessons, recitals, opera rehearsals, and coaching singers.

 

After moving to Los Angeles, she has been involved in many Japanese community projects, including the American premier of Hideaki Hirai's opera, Kaguya Hime, at the Aratani Theater in Little Tokyo (2015).  In 2016 she was appointed as the Chorus Master for Orange County Friendship Choir's collaboration with the LA Doctor's Symphony's performance of Brahms' Deutsches Requiem.

 

In addition to her private music studio in the Covina Valley and the Southbay area, she directs the LA Oratorio Chorus, Voice Lab (a women's chorus), and the South Bay Singers. 

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In 2019, Ms. Suga served as the chorus master for Pacific Opera Project's bilingual production of Madama Butterfly at the Aratani Theatre. (See News)

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Ms. Suga is a native of Southern California.  She enjoys going to museums and the beach in her free time.