Bruce Kolb completed the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in vocal performance at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and has been teaching and performing professionally and academically for over 25 years. He has held faculty posts in voice and choral conducting at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ, Boston Conservatory of Music, Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ, and Central College in Pella, Iowa. Based in New York City, he is a highly regarded singing/acting teacher and clinician, as well as a voice consultant and media coach for the major national and international television networks. He has also performed extensively in opera, oratorio, music theater, early music, and concert in New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C., across the country, and in Europe, Bermuda, and Central and South America. Students from his studios have received critical acclaim across the country including the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, on Broadway, and internationally in opera, regional music theater, concert, and early music ensembles, including Boston Camerata, Ex Umbris, New York Collegium, Tiffany Consort, and Common Ground, as well as first place winners and finalists in major national and international competitions.
Bruce teaches singers performing leading roles in most of the major Broadway shows, and he is in very high demand for singing, voice work, and media coaching with prominent theater/film/television performers. Students that Bruce has worked with include Tony Award winners Glenn Close, Liza Minelli, and Shuler Hensley, in addition to Patrick Stewart, Stockard Channing, Diahann Carroll, Bette Midler, Judy Kuhn, Bryce Dallas Howard, Bellamy Young, Paul Dano, Daniel McDonald, Jean Luisa Kelly, Paige Davis, Patrick Page, Jill Eikenberry, Malcolm Gets, Saundra Santiago, Mary Ellen Stuart, Sandra Joseph, Alan Campbell, Lauren Kennedy, Shalom Harlow, Jennifer Hope Wills, Tim Martin Gleason, Elizabeth Loyacano, Jim Weitzer, Bonnie Rapp, Catherine Brunell, Chris Peterson, Cornilla Luna, D.B. Bonds, Sean Martin Hingston, Rick Hilsabeck, Brian Noonan, Ivan Rutherford, Jennifer Zimmerman, Ben Coates, Andrew Varela, Susan Spencer, Tom Beckett, Jane Bodle, Graham Rowat, Colby Thomas, Glory Crampton, Brenda Pressley, Joan Barber, Susan Dawn Carson, Jennifer Hughes, Katie Fisher, Ashley Linton, Esther Stilwell, Kelly Ellenwood, Leila Martin, Kris Koop, Mandy Gonzalez, Marni Raab, Sara Kramer, Susan Derry, Andrea Rivette, Debra Wiseman, and Grace Weber.
Also known as a writer, conductor, producer, and composer, his scores of incidental music and songs for “Much Ado About Nothing,” “As You LIke It,” and “The Winters Tale” were premiered in New York City with the American Globe Theater where he regularly performed as an actor and singer in addition to serving as music director and composer for the company.
In May of 2000, in Bristol, England, Dr. Kolb conducted the world premier of his composition “God of Unexampled Grace,” commissioned by the Charles Wesley Heritage Society in Bristol and performed in the Heritage Center Chapel with collaborator Ken Clifton at the piano. Guest conducting performances have included the Dartmouth College Glee Club, Hanover, NH; the Master Singers, Cambridge, MA; and St. Paul Choral Society, Monroe, LA. Dr. Kolb also founded and conducted the Rutgers Concert Choir, in addition to conducting the Rutgers University Chorus, and the Rutgers Men’s Glee Club while he was Voice Teacher and Choral Director at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers from 1990-1995.
As a clinician, he regularly teaches at a number of universities, theater companies, workshops and short courses for NATS (National Association of Teachers of Singing) and NYSTA (New York Singing Teachers’ Association, Inc.) with such topics as “Singing Opera – Park and Bark or Keep it Real,” “Singing Technique for the Musical Theater,” “Technical Issues in Cultivated and Vernacular Singing Styles,” “Musical-Dramatic Preparation for the Singer-Actor,” “Working Practically with Performance Anxiety,” and “The Mandorla Metaphor in Performance.” In March, 2001, he was invited to teach in Vienna, Austria, at the historic Theater an der Wien, where he taught singing to the cast of Mozart. He has also taught in England, Germany, and Switzerland.
Since 2005, Dr. Kolb has also been a National Panelist and Teacher for “youngArts,” a national talent search and competition of the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts (www.nfaa.org) in Miami, Florida. NFAA offers awards and scholarships, including the coveted Presidential Scholar award, to 17-18 year old high-school seniors from across the country in the performing and visual arts and invites hundreds of winners to Miami in January for master classes and performances.
It was in Miami in 2006 at NFAA Arts Week where Dr. Kolb taught 17year old pop singer Grace Weber and met 17 year old jazz pianist Julian Pollack. As a result of that meeting, Grace came to NYC and began studying voice with him and collaborating with Julian and Dr. Kolb at his studio. In June of 2007 at Avatar Studios in NYC, Bruce produced a major CD release for Junebeat Records of “Grace and Julian,” whose original material was premiered at the Metropolitan Room in April of 2007 under his direction. Grace Weber, vocalist, and Julian Pollack, piano, guitar, Hammond B3, and Fender Rhodes, developed the program with Bruce at his studio. Their release is an eclectic blend of jazz, pop, and R&B and is available at iTunes under “Grace and Julian.”
Additionally, Dr. Kolb is a member of the C.G. Jung Foundation for Analytical Psychology, Inc in New York City as well as the New York Center for Jungian Studies in New Paltz, NY. He has taken graduate level course work in New York City, Rhinebeck, NY, and Galway, Ireland on such topics as “Music as a Bridge with the Unconscious,” “Archetypes in Wagner’s Operas,” “Listening to Midlife,” and many other subjects such as archetypal structure, male and female archetypes, creativity, the structure of the psyche, active imagination, psychological types, the unconscious, the shadow, listening to dreams, symbols, mythology, synchronicity, individuation, Jung and religion, and the transcendent function.
Bruce enjoys playing piano, composing, theater, writing poetry and short stories, reading, hiking, biking, gyrotonics, gardening, Cajun cooking, inn hopping, film, and visiting friends and family all over the country.