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Andrea Chenoweth Wells is a soprano, stage director and intimacy director.

As a classically trained soprano, Dr. Wells has appeared with orchestras and opera companies throughout the U.S., including regular appearances with the Cleveland Orchestra, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Opera and Dayton Opera. Career highlights include her Carnegie Hall debut singing Verdi’s Requiem and touring Japan with Maestro Neal Gittleman and the Telemann Chamber Orchestra. She has sung numerous operatic roles and is a frequent soloist on The Shakespeare Concerts in Boston. A proponent of new music, Wells has collaborated with many living composers including Libby Larsen, Joseph Summer, Jack Perla, Scott Gendel, Jonathon Sheffer and Monica Houghton. She is a featured artist on an extensive discography of works with text by Shakespeare on the Parma and Albany labels. 

Her stage directing credits include Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring, Marc Antoine Charpentier’s La Fête de Ruel, Mozart’s The Magic Flute and the musicals Chicago, The Sound of Music and Godspell. 

In addition to her earned degrees, Dr. Wells has trained as an intimacy director with Theatrical Intimacy Educators and holds a Consent-Forward Artist certificate from Intimacy Directors and Coordinators, Inc. She has provided intimacy direction for Dido and Aeneas, Tosca, Sweeney Todd, Hunchback of Notre Dame and Green Day’s American Idiot.

Faculty perspective

"The University of Dayton’s Department of Music is a special place where our focus on the undergraduate musician experience is paramount. We are small enough that you get a lot of personal attention, but big enough to support a diversity of musical experiences. As a voice teacher, I strive to find and develop my students’ authentic voices with a grounding in pedagogy that is highly differentiated for each student. Young singers require a sensitive application of specific technical training that builds on their natural strength and talent and encourages a healthy, sustainable sound. I focus on meeting them wherever they are and work with them to find the most efficient way to create freely-produced, stylistically appropriate tone and sincere expression of text. I teach music from classical art song and opera to musical theatre to commercial music. I am also happy to discuss the business of singing, best practices for auditioning, and recital and role preparation as well as advising regarding appropriate coursework and applying to graduate schools and young artist programs. My greatest joy comes from helping my students reach their potential as musicians, regardless of their career aspirations."

Research interests

• Staged Intimacy in Opera
• Women in Opera
• Sacred in Opera
• Performing Arts and Social Justice

Professional activities

• Vice President, Ohio Chapter, National Association for the Teachers of Singing (NATS)
• Associate Editor of VOICE Prints, the online journal of the New York Singing Teachers Association (NYSTA)
• Member, National Opera Association (NOA)

Courses taught

Discography

The Shakespeare Concert Series

• Music to Hear
• Who Is Sylvia? 
• No Enemy but Winter and Rough Weather
• Orpheus with his Lute
• Full Fathom Five
• Goddesses
• The Fair Ophelia 
• Shakespeare’s Memory

The Tempest: Joseph Summer

A Breath of Air: American Art Song

Selected presentations