About Patrizia Cioffi - Biography

Patrizia Cioffi, voice teacher, classical singer and arts administrator and Arts consultant, has been teaching voice for over two decades.

An established professional and master in the field of vocal technique, she is a member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing and the National Music Teachers Association among others. In addition to her teaching, she has had a distinguished professional career in the arts as a performing artist in the United States and in Europe; she has sung leading operatic soprano roles, including "Tosca," "Turandot," "Cavalleria Rusticana," "Un Ballo in Maschera," "Il Trovatore," "La Forza del Destino" and "Aida."

Ms. Cioffi's repertory encompasses  a broad spectrum of music including American standard classics, music theater, opera, operetta and oratorio. She has performed with a number of orchestras at the John Harms Plaza,  Pennsylvania Academy of Music, Princeton University, Williams Center, Newark Symphony Hall, nationally and in Europe. For several years she was a member of the American Opera Company and Opera International, and has worked with well-known conductors, teachers and coaches Richard Woitach, Kurt Saffir, Walter Tausig, Gina Cigna, Loretta Corelli and George Shirley among many international leaders in the vocal arts field.

A consultant for the National Endowment for the Arts since 1984, she was among 12 who received an arts manager's fellowship to work as a staffer in Washington, at the Endowment and has worked for organizations, individuals and the NJ State Council on the Arts as a program evaluator, special panel member and reporter. She has adjudicated for a number of competitions including the Jenny Lind, in Connecticut and Amato Opera in New York City.

Ms. Cioffi attended classes at the Instituto Lorenzo di Medici in Florence, Italy, the Juilliard School, Westminster Choir College and the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute. As a Frances Perkins full scholar, she  received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Music and Italian studies cum laude from Mount Holyoke College, and a Mary Vance Young award for study in Florence, Italy, in addition to having studied operatic singing with several of the past century's most distiguished conductors, coaches and singing teachers including George Shirley, Rita Patane, Antoinetta Stella and Walter Tausig.  Ms. Cioffi is the recipient of several vocal study and coaching awards including the Widmark fellowship for study at La Scala di Milano.

She is founder and Artistic Director of Le voci internazionali, and former founder and Executive Director The New School for the Arts/New Jersey Opera Institute serving the school for over 18 years with Artistic Director George Shirley. She is currently on the faculty of the South Orange-Maplewood Adult School, the Judith Wharton School of Music and the Montclair Adult School, and also teaches privately in Montclair New Jersey and in New York City. She is the Artistic Director of Le voci internazionali, a career development and performance initiative and outgrowth of her teaching.  Ms. Cioffi has taught voice at Mount Holyoke College and the New Jersey Opera Institute among other conservatories and music schools.