DOWAGIAC — Central Michigan University’s Dr. Amanda Pabyan will be a special guest at Southwestern Michigan College’s Fall Choral Concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9.

SMC alumn Anthony Tibbitts from Edwardsburg, now a CMU vocal performance major, will join her from Mount Pleasant to sing at the concert in the theatre of the Dale A. Lyons Building on the Dowagiac campus. The public is invited. Admission is free. Donations are gratefully accepted and go towards activities for SMC performing arts students.

Pabyan, a lecturer in voice at CMU since 2016, leads a master class for SMC Director of Choral Activities David Carew’s students in the afternoon prior to the concert.

She has been a professional performer for 13 years and a voice instructor for nine, with experience teaching advanced students privately in New Jersey, New York City and at the University of Cincinnati.

A coloratura soprano is an operatic voice that specializes in agile runs, leaps and trills.

Pabyan’s doctorate in vocal performance is from the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. She earned a bachelor’s degree in voice from Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts and has recorded Italian cantatas and German arias.

Several publications have recognized her talents.

“A class act, silvery, brilliant, expressive in the stratosphere” (The Montreal Gazette); “a soprano of fearsome agility and power” (New York Observer); “The impressive Pabyan has a soprano with bite, which gives color and nuance to her sound” (The Globe and Mail, Toronto); and “a brilliant coloratura” who is “technically agile, clarion toned and incisive” (New York Times).

Southwestern Michigan College is a public, residential and commuter community college founded in 1964. The college delivers above-average graduation/transfer rates compared to other community colleges nationally and student college-level course success that is consistently in the top 25 percent of two-year colleges nationally. SMC strives to be the college of first choice, to provide the programs and services that meet the needs of students and to serve our community. The college is accredited by The Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the American Association of Community Colleges.

Learn more at swmich.edu or email mediarelations@swmich.edu.