Victoria Shively

Victoria Demaree Shively earned the Master of Music in Vocal Coaching and Accompanying at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, studying with John Wustman. Junior division winner of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, she has played for master classes and in the studios of William Warfield, Mignon Dunn, and Sherrill Milnes, and has accompanied the choirs of Robert Shaw, Don V Moses, and Donald Nally.  Her collaborative work includes performances with Nathan Gunn, Drake Dantzler, Zheng Zhou, Fritz Kaenzig, Margaret Donaghue, and recordings with Edward Bach (Infinity) and Nathan Daughtrey (Spiral Passages). Though invited to become the first American coach/accompanist at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg by then principal conductor, Valery Gergiev, she instead accepted positions at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Kansas State University, and Oakland University. At Oakland, where she was the 2018 recipient of the Excellence in Teaching Award, she teaches music history and music theory, and coaches singers. She is also the music director and conductor of opera at OU, is an orchestral pianist, and collaborates frequently with faculty colleagues.