FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Catherine Compton, D.M. student in voice and associate instructor of voice at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, recently received a $20,000 Scholar Award from the P.E.O. Sisterhood.
One of 100 doctoral students in the U.S. and Canada to receive this year’s award, Compton was sponsored by P.E.O.’s Chapter HO of Hudson, Florida.
“I am thrilled and honored to have been chosen for a P.E.O. Scholar Award,” said Compton. “I am grateful to the HO chapter for nominating me and to all of the strong women mentors who have inspired me on my educational journey.
“The award will allow me to focus on completing my dissertation, ‘19th-century Lieder by Women Composers: A Pedagogical Anthology for Young Singers,’ and to create a supplemental recording.”
Compton, who still studies with retired Jacobs professor Mary Ann Hart, also serves on the production staff of IU Jacobs School of Music Opera Theater.
As a Fulbright fellow in Leipzig, Germany, Compton sang with the Leipzig Bach Festival, Mendelssohn Haus Museum and Gewandhaus zu Leipzig as well as the Haus der Kulturen der Welt and the Fulbright Kommission in Berlin.
Her recent U.S. performances include Lili Boulanger’s “Clairières dans le ciel” at Indiana University, the Brahms Requiem with the Truman State Symphony Orchestra, Bach’s Cantata 51 with the Brownsville Chamber Orchestra and “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” with the Central Iowa Symphony.
A soprano, Compton’s operatic roles include Zerlina (“Don Giovanni”), Pamina (“The Magic Flute”), Erste Dame (“The Magic Flute”), Mother (“Amahl and the Night Visitors”) and Gretel (“Hansel and Gretel”), among others.
Before coming to the Jacobs School, Compton served on the voice faculty of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley from 2015 to 2018, where she taught applied voice, diction, music entrepreneurship and opera workshop.
Compton earned an M.M. in voice performance and pedagogy from the University of Colorado Boulder and a B.M. in music education from Iowa State University. She was a 2018 National Association of Teachers of Singing Intern.
“I am delighted that Cathy has received this generous award,” said Hart. “It has been a true pleasure to work with her as my voice student at IU for the past three years. I see a happy synchronicity here: The Scholar Award from P.E.O., an organization of women, will support Cathy’s research on the lieder of 19th-century women composers.”
The P.E.O. Sisterhood, founded in 1869 at Iowa Wesleyan College, is a philanthropic educational organization dedicated to supporting higher education for women.
The P.E.O. Scholar Awards were established in 1991 to provide substantial merit-based awards for women of the United States and Canada who are pursuing a doctoral-level degree at an accredited college or university. Awards recipients are chosen for their high level of academic achievement and potential for having a positive impact on society.