This season he has conducted and staged
performances of choral music and opera scenes throughout Eastern Germany,
including Thale, Burg Falkenstein, Wust, Vieritz, Jerichow, Quedlinburg,
Halberstadt, and Leipzig. He also appeared with coloratura-soprano Kathy McNeil
and tenor Oliver Lucero in Prague, Czech Republic.
Having conducted all six choral ensembles of Texas Tech University,
he currently serves as Associate Director of Choral Studies and Assistant
Professor of Choral and Opera Studies. Dr. Hollins is the Music Director and
Conductor of the TTU Graduate Opera Project and vocal coach for the TTU Music
Theatre program, having helped to artistically shape productions of The Bartered
Bride, La Traviata, Die Zauberflöte, Too Many Sopranos, West Side Story, The
Ballad of Baby Doe, La Clemenza di Tito, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia.
Hollins is also a conductor and pianist for the Cedar Rapids (Iowa)
Opera Theatre. As Music Director for the Young Artist Program he has conducted
productions of The Mikado, H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Into the
Woods, and The Gondoliers. As pianist for main-stage productions
he has collaborated on productions of Le Nozze di Figaro, Carmen, Susannah,
L'Elisir d'Amore, and Aida. From 2005-2007 he was a faculty
lecturer and pianist/organist for the Summer Choral Institute of St. John's
College-Cambridge University (United Kingdom) and Texas Tech University. In
2005 he was the Co-Director of Music and pianist/organist for the Triennial
Oxbridge Symposium of the C.S. Lewis Institute. These engagements afforded
opportunities to perform in Cambridge, Oxford, and Ely.
Dr. Hollins has collaborated with some of the world's finest artists:
including singers Allan Glassman, Kathryn Goeldner, Hector Vasquez, and Marilyn
Mims-who have enjoyed leading roles at the Metropolitan Opera-and Arianna
Zuckerman, Hope Briggs, Malcolm McKenzie, Cynthia Clayton, and Drew Slatton-who
have enjoyed national and international opera and concert careers; stage
directors Ed Bourgois, Gregory Keller, and Bill Fabris; and conductors/coaches
David Hill, Jon Spong, and Daniel Kleinknecht, Other collaborative
keyboard credits include numerous professional, collegiate, and festival
choruses and orchestras: the City of Oxford Orchestra (United Kingdom), Coro
Favoriti, the Choral Arts Society of Louisville, the Lubbock Symphony
Orchestra, the Louisville Orchestra, the Kentucky Opera Chorus, and the
Columbia Philharmonic Chorus. He has performed at both divisional and national
conventions of the American Choral Directors Association and served as a
Repertoire and Standards Chair for the ACDA Southern Division.
Current research and creative activities include the study of choral
repertoire by American composer Dan Locklair, the positive synthesis and the
creative intersection of vocal and conducting pedagogy, and the development and
direction of a musical and cultural seminar in Germany entitled Choral and
Operatic Performance Perspectives of Middle Germany: a Summer Seminar and
Performance Practicum in the Vocal Collaborative Arts, providing
students the opportunity to study and perform in Sachsen-Anhalt, Sachsen, and
Thüringen.
A strong advocate of music education and outreach, Dr. Hollins was
the Associate Artistic Director of Voices of Kentuckiana, a community
chorus in Louisville, and a music consultant for the Kentucky Opera
Association, where he worked closely with the educational program "Music!
Words! Opera!"- in which students create, compose, produce, and perform their
own operas. An active church musician, he currently serves as Organist and
Co-Director of Music at St. Paul's-on-the-Plains Episcopal Church in Lubbock,
having formerly served parishes in Kentucky and South Carolina.
Dr. Hollins holds the D.M.A. degree in choral conducting, piano
performance, and musicology and the M.C.M. degree in organ and piano from
Southern Seminary. He holds the B.M. degree in piano pedagogy from the
University of South Carolina.
|
