Biography

Dr. Sarah Daughtrey, mezzo-soprano, serves as Voice Area Coordinator, BA Program Coordinator and Associate Professor of Music at NMSU, teaching courses in Vocal Diction, Vocal Pedagogy and Literature, as well as applied voice lessons. Dr. Daughtrey received the DM in Vocal Performance and Literature from the prestigious Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University, where she studied with world-renowned soprano Patricia Wise. She earned the BA in Vocal Performance from Austin Peay State University in Tennessee, and pursued graduate studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she was a Knoxville Opera Company Apprentice performing in the Educational Outreach program. With the University of Tennessee Opera Theatre, she performed several roles, including Ottavia in Monteverdi’s “The Coronation of Poppea.” While at IU, she was privileged to perform as the Student/Singer in a staged version of Argento’s song cycle “From the Diary of Virginia Woolf” under the direction of acclaimed baritone Håkan Hagegård with the composer in attendance.

An active performer and recitalist, Dr. Daughtrey recently recorded a new album for Centaur Records entitled “A Touch of Blue,” featuring works for voice, saxophone and piano, including the premiere recording of Marius Flothuis’ cycle on poems from Langston Hughes, “Negro Lament.” She also was selected to perform the cycle for the 2019 College Music Society national conference. With her string colleagues at NMSU, she traveled to Mexico in 2022 to perform vocal chamber works at the Conservatorio de las Rosas in Morelia, and at the prestigious Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City.  During the summer of 2013, Dr. Daughtrey was accepted into the Mentor Program of SongFest in Los Angeles, where she was privileged to work with composer William Bolcom, singers William Sharp and Amy Burton, among others. She has also performed many faculty and community recitals regionally and nationally, including several recitals featuring 20th Century Brazilian and Latin American song, including a presentation and performance at the 2016 Texoma NATS Artist Series on Brazilian song and lyric diction. Her passion for interdisciplinary performance led to two faculty grants for multimedia programs based around “The Arts of Spain” at the beginning of the 20th century and Paris and its World Expositions, as well as a faculty recital at NMSU around the theme of “Paris and Exoticism,” featuring Ravel's chamber song cycle, “Chansons madécasses.” 

In her diverse activities as presenter, director and clinician, Dr. Daughtrey performed at the 2016 CMS national conference in works from Peter Garland’s avant-garde music journal “Soundings” with fellow NMSU faculty.  Additionally, she has published two articles for the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Journal of Singing, the most recent entitled “Let’s Start at the Very End: Teaching the Singers of Generation Z,” which she presented at the 2021 Texoma NATS annual conference and at the 2022 CMS Southwest Regional Conference.  She has also served as master class instructor at several colleges around the country and regionally, especially for NMMEA, working with students on vocal technique and repertoire. 

Prof. Daughtrey most recently served for two terms as District Governor for the Rio Grande area of NATS, and is former president of both the Rio Grande and Allegheny Mountain Chapters, hosting and coordinating the student auditions several times, including the 2017 Student Auditions at NMSU, as well as serving as an adjudicator for numerous competitions, including the prestigious Musicfest Northwest in Spokane, WA in 2017.