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The American coloratura soprano and music pedagogue, Gale Johnson-Odom, earned her Bachelor of Music degree from North Texas State University in 1975; and her Master of Music degree in vocal performance from Indiana University in 1978. She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1991 from the University of North Texas, where she was a student of Virginia Botkin. She is a former national finalist in the National Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Awards and a regional winner of the Federation of Music Clubs Young Artist Award.
Gale Johnson is well known in both Louisiana and Texas as an opera and oratorio singer, having performed with such organizations as the Dallas Public Opera, New Orleans Opera and the Longview Symphony. Recent performances with the Shreveport Opera have included roles as Hanna in The Merry Widow and Gretel in Hansel and Gretel. She sang the role of Micaela in Carmen for the Shreveport Opera in September 1998. She has performed numerous times with the Shreveport Symphony, including appearances in L.v. Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, George Frideric Handel's Messiah and Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2: "Resurrection." She was soprano soloist in the G. Mahler's Symphony No. 4 with the Longview Symphony and appeared with the Marshall, Texas Symphony in Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss. In summer 1998 she sang Norina in the Longview production of Don Pasquale. Her music theater appearances include the roles of Johanna in Sweeney Todd and Cinderella in Into the Woods for the Marjorie Lyons Playhouse. She also performed the role of the Church Singer in the movie Steel Magnolias. Other theatrical performances have been with the Marjorie Lyons Playhouse, the Marc Blitzstein Opera Company, the Indiana University Opera Theater, the North Texas State University Opera Theater and the Public Opera of Dallas.
Dr. Gale Johnson-Odom, is a member of the Centenary College of Louisiana music faculty since 1978. She is a full professor at Centenary, where she received the Outstanding Teaching Award in 1994. At Centenary, she has taught voice, language diction, and vocal pedagogy in the School of Music. She also formerly directed the Camerata choral group, which offered major concerts each semester. In June 1998, she was apoointed the new Dean of the Centenary College's Hurley School of Music. |
