Join us for the 2026 CAL-Western Regional Conference!
January 16-18 at San Jose State University in San Jose, California.
The schedule of events can be found at the link below. We'll be updating it regularly with further details. Check back often.
For hotel recommendations, see the tab above called Conference Accommodations.
Some highlights of note:
Friday, January 16th - opening event with special guest performer Dario Johnson followed a meet and greet and our 2026 Teacher Time Recital!
Saturday, January 17th - Semi-Final round of our 2026 region auditions and Student Workshops throughout the day.
Sunday, January 18th - Voice Clinics and Final rounds followed by our 2026 Awards Ceremony!
Workshops and group events will be posted along with all online presentations for all registered attendees to access following the conference. Register at the link below to join us in person or to access online content! (If you registered for the auditions, you do not need to re-register for the conference).
2026 NATS Cal-Western
Region Conference
Map
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SJSU Interactive Campus Map
Parking
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SJSU Visitor/Guest Parking
South garage is the closest one to the music building.
Schedule
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Full Schedule
Click here to view the schedule for the conference.
Late Registration
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This form is for those registering for the Jan 16-18 Conference and Auditions in San Jose, CA. If you registered students for any round of the auditions, you DO NOT need to re-register. Registration will allow you to attend any in-person events and to access any of the online content associated with the conference. See you in San Jose!
2026 Clinicians
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Kelly Burge
Commercial Music Voice Technician
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Heidi Moss Erickson
Classical Voice Technician
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Dr. Larissa Kelloway
Musical Theatre Voice Technician
2026 Presenters
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Beatrice Berger Gee
BeSingGargle — a vocal warm up method
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Dr. Brian Manternach
Talk Less, Smile More: Adjusting Feedback in the Voice Studio
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Emily Dirks
Bridging the Gap Between Vocal Performance Degrees & Opera Apprentice Programs
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Hope Tian
Diction Challenges in Bel Canto Singing among Mandarin Speakers
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Ida Nicolosi
Preparation Tools and Tips for Successful College Auditions: Bridging the Gap Between Vocal Technique and Dramatic Interpretation
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Dr. Karine St-Pierre
Unlocking French Lyric Diction: Practical Tools for Singers
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Dr. Keith Colclough
Applying yourself: Preparing Your Job Application Materials
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Maya Rothfuss
Applying Yourself, Insight on Applying for Your Next Teaching Position
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Megan Gillespie
STOP Over-Enunciating: Real-World Diction for Commercial Singing
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Michael Mohammed
Speaking the Song
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Sean Stanton
The Awakened Voice: Movement, Qi Gong, and Yoga for Singers
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Seth Keeton
The Aspen Grove of Opera Singers and gathering information at scale
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Sheila Townsend
Let's Shake Things Up! The Vestibulo-Ocular Reflex and How it Can Revolutionize Your Singing
2025 Presenters
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Carole FitzPatrick
Classical Voice Technician
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Jeremy Aye
Commercial Music Voice Technician
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Amanda DeMaris
Musical Theatre Voice Technician
2025 Student Workshop Presenters
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Emma England
Emma England is the owner and artistic director of Studio 3 Performing Arts Academy in Gilbert, AZ, where she has turned her passion for the arts into a thriving hub for creative education. Through Studio 3, Emma has fulfilled her dream of providing high-quality arts training that empowers youth of all ages to pursue professional careers in the performing arts.
Emma is also the founder, Board President, and Artistic Director of Limelight Performing Arts, a non-profit youth theatre dedicated to inspiring young performers. With a career spanning countless productions, she has worn nearly every hat imaginable—earning multiple AriZoni and National Youth Arts Awards for her exceptional direction and design.
A dynamic artist in her own right, Emma continues to perform professionally while sharing her expertise as a director, choreographer, music director, and voice coach. Whether leading show choirs, directing productions, or teaching private and group voice classes, Emma’s passion for nurturing talent shines through in everything she does
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Robyn Frey-Monell
Robyn Frey-Monell is an active and dedicated vocal pedagogue and adjudicator. Her scholarly research has centered on motivation, self-assessment and how students learn. Dr. Frey-Monell spent two decades teaching college level voice, diction, song literature and opera workshop, where she trained students to thoroughly create characters for the stage. She is currently building the music program at Rosary Academy in Fullerton, CA by teaching choir, orchestra, song writing, musical theater and learning strategies. Dr. Frey-Monell received a Doctor of Education degree from Columbia University Teachers College, a Master of Fine Arts degree from University of California Irvine and a Bachelor of Music degree from Westminster Choir College.
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Melissa Heath
Soprano Melissa Heath enjoys a varied career of opera, concert and recital work. Hailed as a “soaring, sparkling soprano” with “vivacious stage presence,” recent opera roles include Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème, Countess in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen. Recent concert work includes Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem and both Mozart’s Requiem and Mass in c minor with the Temple Square Chorale and Orchestra at Temple Square, Handel’s Messiah with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and both Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate and Barber’s Knoxville, Summer of 1915 with Sinfonia Salt Lake. With the Utah Symphony, Ms. Heath has performed both Nielsen’s Symphony no. 3 and Handel’s Messiah. In 2017 she was the soprano soloist with Ballet West in choreographer Nicolo Fonte’s world premiere of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. She reprised this role with both Ballet West (2022) and Nevada Ballet Theater (2022 and 2023). Ms. Heath is a frequent soloist on Salt Lake City’s NOVA Chamber Music Series, and has performed on the Gina Bachauer International Piano Festival. In 2019 she sang the role of The Water in Utah Opera's Production of The Little Prince, Mahler’s Symphony no. 2 with Salt Lake Symphony, and soloed with Utah Symphony in their Deer Valley Concert Series. In 2023, she appeared again with Ballet West in Stravinsky’s Les Noces and with Utopia, Utah’s premiere early music ensemble. In 2024, she performed with Salt Lake Symphony for the world premiere of John Costa’s The Statuette EP, and with the American Festival Chorus & Orchestra in Merrill Bradshaw’s The Restoration. Ms. Heath was a district winner in the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions, and was a two-time regional finalist in the National Association of Teachers of Singing’s biennial art song competition. Ms. Heath is an Associate Professor of music and the Voice Area Coordinator in the Department of Music at Utah Valley University. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in voice from Brigham Young University and her Master of Music and Doctorate of Musical Arts degrees in voice from the University of Utah.
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Valdis Jansons
Valdis Jansons is a baritone and vocal educator. In more than two decades on stage, Latvian-born baritone Valdis Jansons had been praised for his “scenery-chewing intensity” (The Wall Street Journal), “generous and expressive phrasing” (Opera Actual, Spain), and “vigorous voice, with easy high notes and excellent breath control” (Olyrix, France). After making his opera debut in 2002, under the baton of Antonello Allemandi, and winning numerous international singing competitions, Mr. Jansons has conquered audiences worldwide in repertoire spanning from early Mozart to contemporary opera, jazz, and musical theatre. Among more than 50 leading roles in his repertoire, and his almost 20-year long residence in Italy, Jansons specializes in Italian repertoire, especially on that of the 19th century. Mr. Jansons appeared in hundreds of theaters worldwide, including Teatro alla Scala, Teatro San Carlo, Theatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Theater an der Wien, Teatro São Carlos in Lisbon, and Teatro Regio di Parma.
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Rebecca Plack
Dr. Rebecca Plack is Professor of Opera Studies and Music History at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where the courses she’s taught include Lieder, Opera on Record, Mozart Role Preparation and Vocal Pedagogy. She has given solo recitals in London and Budapest as winner of the Los Angeles International Liszt Society, and in Hamilton, Canada at the International Great Romantics Festival; she has also performed with Sacramento Opera, Ithaca Opera, and at the Caramoor and Aspen Music Festivals. A passionate educator, she has given invited talks and master classes at Oxford University, King’s College London, and most recently as keynote speaker at the University of Surrey’s Mechanical Recording Workshop. She holds degrees from Princeton University (B.A.), Manhattan School of Music (M.M.) and Cornell University (Ph.D.).
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Rachel Stoddard
Rachel Stoddard has worked as a music educator in the Valley for the past 30 years conducting choirs of all ages, teaching private voice and piano lessons, directing musicals and performing in various choral groups and musical theatre productions. Currently she runs a private voice studio in North Phoenix. She also directs the junior and teen choirs and teaches voice at Rosie’s House, an afterschool K-12 music program in downtown Phoenix, where the mission is to eliminate barriers to high quality music education. Previous choral directing and teaching positions include Scottsdale Christian Academy, Arizona Christian University, Paradise Valley Community College, the Phoenix Boys Choir (training choir) and the Paradise Valley Unified School District. She holds a Master of Music degree in Music Education from Arizona State University and a Bachelor of Music Education degree from Susquehanna University and is a member of the Valley of the Sun Chapter of NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing.)
Rachel and her husband Mark (Associate Artistic Director at Valley Youth Theatre) are the parents of three grown children. They enjoy working together on musical theatre productions, traveling and exploring new places to hike in Arizona with their dogs.
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Melissa Treinkman
Melissa Treinkman, DMA, is an assistant professor of musical theatre vocal performance at the University of Southern California. Melissa's works has been published in the Journal of Singing, the Journal of Voice, and the Musical Theatre Educators' Alliance Journal. She has presented her research at conferences given by the Voice Foundation, NATS, the Association for Popular Music Education, Northwest Voice Conference, The Fall Voice Conference, and the Pan American Vocology Association. Melissa was the 2020 recipient of the Voice Foundation's Sataloff Award for Young Investigators and she was the first researcher to win the award in the category of vocal pedagogy. She was also the 2024 recipient of the Richard Sjoedsrma Excellence in Writing Award. She currently serves as an associate editor of the Journal of Singing, where she is the author of "The Vocal Point" column. She is a regular singer with the Los Angeles Opera chorus. www.melissatreinkman.com
Volunteer!
Interested in volunteering for this year’s Regional Conference? Fill out some info and we will be in touch shortly. We can’t wait to hear from you!