Melissa Brunkan, Mentoring Program Apprentice, received degrees from the University of Minnesota and Northwestern Universtiy in Evanston, IL. in music education, voice performance, vocal pedagogy and choral conducting.  Previous to her current position, Melissa Brunkan taught music, voice and choir at the elementary, middle school, high school and university level.

Throughout her time as a teacher, Melissa has also been an active vocal performer throughout the country in opera, oratorio and concert settings. Since 2000, Melissa has taught choral/vocal music and sound art ( a new creation/composition-based exploratory music class) at the Fine Arts Interdisciplinary Resource Middle School in Crystal, MN.

Since the school's opening in the fall of 2000, the students at FAIR School have participated in non-auditioned choirs performing throughout the city. She has also taught voice at the college level as well as in a private studio.

Melissa has served as the American Choral Directors Association of Minnesota Repertoire and Standards Chairperson for Elementary Music as well as being a member of NATS, IFCE, MENC, MMEA, the Voice Care Network and OAKE. Ms. Brunkan serves as the music director and vocal coach at Stages Theater Co. and enjoys spending free time with her daughter, Madi and black lab, Sirius Black.

He authored a 4-part series of articles on the changing voice for the Choral Journal in 1977-78. With two voice scientists, he completed in 1983 a landmark, 3-year research project on the male adolescent changing voice.

He has directed clinic-festival-all-state choirs in over thirty states in the U.S and has presented sessions for the American Choral Directors Association, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, The Voice Foundation, and the International Society for Music Education. His university choral ensembles have been critically acclaimed in the United States and Europe.

Carol Klitzke is a licensed Speech Pathologist and Clinical Specialist in voice and larynx disorders at the Fairview Voice Center in Minneapolis. She has been a past adjunct instructor at St. Cloud University and currently a guest instructor at University of Wisconsin River Falls. She has presented at a wide variety of workshops, conferences and meetings for Music Educators, professional and avocational voice users and Speech Pathologists.

Babette Lightner director of Stones in Water-Movement Education and LearningMethods Center, is a Registered Somatic Movement Educator, has a degree in Dance, is a Certified Teacher of the Alexander Technique and is one of four Certified LearningMethods Teachers in the United States. For ten years she taught in the Professional Actor Training Program and Music Department at the University of Minnesota. Babette has lectured and taught for many institutions, organizations, colleges and Universities including the Guthrie Theater, Sister Kenny Institute, Taipei National University of Arts in Taiwan and a multitude of music organizations.For 18 years Lightner has maintained an individual practice initially as an Alexander Technique Teacher and currently as a LearningMethods" teacher. In this practice she works with people dealing with pain, and stress issues and with performers who want to get better at what they do.

Her explorations into human movement have taken her around the world from dancing with a folk dance troupe in the villages of South India to performing with a post-modern physical theatre company in the warehouses of Boston.  She is currently pioneering  teaching a new model  human structure and function in her Anatomy of Wholenesstm workshops. She has developed her own movement work called Wholeness in Motion. This innovative approach brings together her range of expertise in movement work including: Alexander Technique, Yoga, Tai Chi Chuan, Body Mind Centering, Bartenieff Fundamentals, Modern and Ethnic Dance,  Mindfulness, Laban Movement Analysis and LearningMethods. She has a studio on 25 acres outside of River Falls, Wisconsin and maintains an active workshop and lecture schedule.

Jeremy Manternach, Mentoring Program Apprentice, is a 2000 graduate of Saint John's University/College of Saint Benedict. While there, he studied Choral Conducting and Vocal Performance. He is currently the Vocal Music Director at Andover High School and the Assistant to the Artistic Director of the Saint John's Boys' Choir.

Previously, Jeremy was a choir director at Apple Valley High School. In addition to conducting, Jeremy is an active performer throughout the Twin Cities and beyond. He has been a hired tenor soloist or section leader with the Phipps Oratorio Society (WI), Exultate, the Voices of Vienna, the Macalester Chorale, The Saint John's Abbey Schola, and four years with the Westminster Presbyterian Church Senior Choir. He spent five years with Kantorei Chamber Choir as a singer, which included a stint as the Vice President of the Board of Directors.

In addition, he is in his sixth year as a section leader with the Minnesota Chorale, and his first year with The Singers Minnesota Choral Artists. Last year, along with nineteen others, Jeremy was honored as a recipient of the TOP (Teacher Outstanding Performance) Award from the Anoka-Hennepin School District #11. He was also one of three selected to participate in the Minnesota Chorale Emerging Conductor program. His conducting instructors include Br. Paul Richards, OSB, and Dr. Axel Theimer.

Jennifer Moir, Mentoring Program Apprentice, received her Masters of Vocal Literature and Performance from The University of Western Ontario. She is a member of The Voice Care Network, based at St. Johns University, Collegeville, Minnesota. Currently, Jennifer teaches at The Don Wright Faculty of Music at The University of Western Ontario as a Professor of Voice, and Choirs. She conducts The Woodstock Fanshawe Singers, and is the Artistic Director for Project Sing!,a young womens vocal ensemble based in London, Ontario.

Jennifer is the Founder, Artistic Director and Producer of the Kaleid Choral Festival held annually in Woodstock, Ontario. She also adjudicates festivals and works as a clinician for voice and choirs across North America.

Select conducting credits include: CBC Radio Competition Prizes, Gold Medal Performances at the Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales and The Choral Olympics in Linz, Austria, and the Opening Ceremonies, Jeux du Canada Games. In 2002, she was the recipient of the distinguished Leslie Bell Prize for choral conducting.

G. Phillip Shoultz, III, Mentoring Program Apprentice, an accomplished conductor, educator, vocalist, and speaker, is widely known for his work with singers of all ages and abilities. Phillip serves the Snellville United Methodist Church as Director of Music Ministries. In addition, he is the Artistic Director and Conductor of two community singing organizations: The Atlanta Institute for Musicianship and Singing/Atlanta Youth Choir and the Gwinnett Choral Guild. Before moving into full-time church ministry, Phillip served as Director of Choral/General Music studies for Winder-Barrow Middle School. While there, the program quadrupled in size, consistently received Superior ratings in performance evaluations, and the singers won two Sweepstakes trophies in the prestigious Southern Star Music Festival. In addition, Phillip was named Teacher of the Year on three separate occasions, by three different organizations.

Phillip holds the Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Music degrees, Magna Cum Laude with High Honors, from the University of Georgia and has completed the coursework towards the Master of Music degree from Georgia State University. Additionally, he has completed post-graduate studies through the Choral Music Experience Institute and the Voice Care Network, where he now serves as a Senior Learner/Faculty member. Phillip frequently appears as a guest clinician for a variety of honor choirs, summer camps, and conferences throughout the country. He adjudicates solo and choral festivals and serves as guest voice educator to many schools, churches, and community organizations. Phillip believes that singing is a lifelong activity in which every person can experience great joy and his passion is creating corporate singing experiences.

Axel Theimer, D.M.A., is Executive Director of The VoiceCare Network. He is a baritone recitalist and Professor of Voice and Director of Choral Activities at St. John's University, Collegeville, and the College of St. Benedict, St. Joseph, Minnesota.

Born and raised in Vienna, Austria, he was a member of the famous Vienna Choir Boys, and director of the "Chorus Viennensis". His graduate degrees are from the University of Minnesota (MFA in Choral Conducting; DMA in Vocal Performance). Dr. Theimer has presented interest sessions at state, regional, and national ACDA and MENC conventions and for other state and regional music educator-choral conductor organizations.

He frequently conducts choral and voice clinics throughout the United States and in Canada, including all-state and honor choirs in Alabama, Alaska, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Montana, North and South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania.

Leon Thurman, Ed.D., baritone, is founder of the VoiceCare Network. Currently he is Specialist Voice Educator at the Leon Thurman Voice Center (LTVC), Minneapolis, Minnesota, his current private practice. From December, 1995, through November, 2007, he held the same title at Fairview Voice Center (FVC), Rehabilitation Services, University of Minnesota Medical Center, Fairview. He also is Adjunct Professor of the Graduate Program in Music Education at the University of St Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota.  

At LTVC, Leon: (1) teaches private voice (classical and popular singers, teachers/professors, actors, storytellers, broadcast talent, businesspersons, clergy); (2) assesses voices to determine whether or not they need to see an ear-nose- throat doctor and refers them to voice-dedicated physicians and speech pathologists when they need medical and/or therapeutic treatment (he still collaborates with his Fairview Voice Center speech pathologist colleague, Carol Klitzke); (3)following medical and therapeutic treatment, he assists singers and speakers as they apply their therapy program to their 'athletic'  voice pursuits; and (4) gives groups presentations for choirs, theatre casts, workshops, conferences, courses,  and seminars about efficient voice use in speaking and singing, voice health and protection, and human compatible learning and teaching (based in the neuropsychobiology of human learning and self-expression).              

Dr. Thurman earned his Ed.D. degree from the University of Illinois in 1977. Post-doctoral study has included work in voice education and health, and in the lifespan neuropsychobiology of perception, emotion-feeling, memory, learning, behavior, and health. His primary voice mentors have been Charles Nelson, Oren Brown, Geraldine Braden, and his primary mentors in voice health have been Van Lawrence, M.D. and Robert Bastian M.D.

 Dr. Thurman has taught choral and general music in grades 4-12, as well as undergraduate, graduate, and continuing vocal music education. He has been a consultant on several projects at the National Center for Voice and Speech (e.g., www.voiceacademy.org), and is on the Editorial Board of the International Journal for Research in Choral Singing (www.choralresearch.org). He has performed with Robert Shaw in the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus and Chamber Chorus, and toured with the Norman Luboff Choir. He has presented lectures, workshops, and vocal/choral clinics throughout the United States and in Austria, Australia, Canada, Netherlands, and United Kingdom for many local, regional, national and international organizations.

The VoiceCare Network’s course book, Bodymind and Voice: Foundations of Voice Education, was conceived, principally written, and co-edited by Dr. Thurman. In 2004, he was lead author and presenter of a paper at the Second International Conference on the Physiology and Acoustics of Singing titled “Addressing Register Discrepancies: An Alternative Science-based Theory of Vocal Register Phenomena” (hosted by National Center for Voice and Speech, Denver, Colorado, USA; download at www.ncvs.org). He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Choral Directors Association (ACDA), Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), Music Educators National Conference (MENC), Muisc Teachers National Assocation (MTNA),  National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS), and the Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA).

In 2005, due to health circumstances, Leon Thurman retired from active involvement with the VoiceCare Network.  During the Network's summer courses, he will continue to provide the voice health and voice efficiency consultations that he has provided in the past.  He also will be available for consulting with the Network's Board of Directors.