I love helping people
sing and teach
really well
ABOUT
I'm a bass-baritone and voice pedagogue, and most of my work lives in one question: what is the voice actually doing, and how does a singer come to know it?
I teach through discovery rather than correction. Instead of handing singers a fix, I give them structured ways to explore their own instrument, to feel the range of motion, to hear the difference between one sound and another, to notice cause and effect for themselves. The acoustics, the perception, the biomechanics all serve that: they're how we make the invisible parts of singing knowable.
When a singer starts to understand why their instrument behaves the way it does, something shifts. They stop guessing. They start to trust the voice, and then they start to trust themselves. That's what I love about this work. It isn't only about better singing. It's about giving people a clearer, richer relationship with the most personal instrument there is.
I get to do this with singers and voice teachers all over the world, across amplified and unamplified styles of singing.
Chadley Ballantyne, DMA, is Associate Professor of Music in Voice at Stetson University and a bass-baritone whose teaching centers on a single question: what is the voice actually doing, and how does a singer come to know it? His work draws on acoustics, perception, and biomechanics not as ends in themselves but as ways to make the hidden parts of singing knowable, so that singers learn through guided discovery, contrast, and cause and effect rather than correction alone. He teaches across amplified and unamplified styles, and his research interests include vibrotactile awareness, breathing biomechanics, and the perception of the singing voice.
Dr. Ballantyne is a contributing author to The Oxford Handbook of Voice Pedagogy (Oxford University Press, 2026), The Vocal Athlete (3rd ed., 2024), and The Evolving Singing Voice: Changes Across the Life Span (2018). He is a co-instructor of the Acoustic Vocal Pedagogy Workshop alongside Kenneth Bozeman and Ian Howell, presented by the Embodied Music Lab. He has given more than 90 juried, invited, and guest presentations at conferences worldwide, including the International Congress of Voice Teachers, the Pan-European Voice Conference, The Voice Foundation Symposium, the Pan American Vocology Association, and the NATS National Conference.
As a bass-baritone, Chadley has sung signature roles including Leporello and Figaro in Mozart's Da Ponte operas, Escamillo in Carmen, and Sharpless in Madama Butterfly, along with oratorio work that includes Mendelssohn's Elijah and the Mozart Requiem. He has performed with Opera Orlando, Union Avenue Opera, Utah Festival Opera, and others, and has premiered new works written for his voice, including a song cycle by Lonnie Hevia and music by Chaz Underriner. His recent appearances include Opera Orlando's productions of Le Nozze di Figaro and All is Calm.
Dr. Ballantyne holds a Bachelor of Music from Drake University and a Master of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has previously served on the voice faculties of the University of Northern Colorado, the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, and North Park University.
PUBLICATIONS
Books and Book Chapters
Ballantyne, Chadley, and Mary Malde. "Sensation, Kinesthesia, Body Mapping, and Teaching Singing." In The Oxford Handbook of Voice Pedagogy, edited by John Nix and Leda Scearce. New York: Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2026.
The Vocal Athlete: Application and Technique for the Hybrid Singer. 3rd ed. San Diego, CA: Plural Publishing, 2024. Contributing author.
Brunssen, Karen. The Evolving Singing Voice: Changes Across the Lifespan. San Diego, CA: Plural Publishing, 2018. Contributing author, Chapters 3 ("The Adolescent Years"), 4 ("Young Adult"), and 8 ("Training Tools Through the Life Span").
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Rollings Bigler, A., K. Osborne, C. Ballantyne, B. Horne, K. James, B. Manternach, Y. Redman, and M. Treinkman. "Voice Pedagogy for the 21st Century: The Summation of Two Summits." Journal of Singing 78, no. 1 (2021): 11–28.
Other Publications
Howell, Ian, Kayla Gautereaux, Joshua Glasner, Nicholas Perna, Chadley Ballantyne, and Theodora Nestorova. "Preliminary Report: Comparing the Audio Quality of Classical Music Lessons over Zoom, Microsoft Teams, VoiceLessonsApp, and Apple FaceTime." Online report, 2020.
Ballantyne, Chadley. "Acoustic Analysis of Belting, Parts 1–4." Presented at Vocology in Practice Webinar, October 2019.
Ballantyne, Chadley. "Book Review of Kinesthetic Voice Pedagogy, by Kenneth Bozeman." VOICEPrints 16, no. 1 (September–October 2018): 19–22.
Ballantyne, Chadley, and Kenneth Bozeman. "Study Guide for Practical Vocal Acoustics." 2015.
SPEAKING
International Conferences
Ballantyne, Chadley, Ian Howell, and Sophia Maritz. "Impact of Static Postures on Breathing Patterns for Singing." 11th International Congress of Voice Teachers (ICVT), Toronto, Canada, 2025.
Ballantyne, Chadley. "Pure Sound vs. Rough Sensation: Sorting the Sensations of the Sung Tone." 15th Pan-European Voice Conference, Santander, Spain, 2024.
Ballantyne, Chadley, and Alyson Culbertson. "Antagonism in the Voice Studio." 15th Pan-European Voice Conference, Santander, Spain, 2024.
Ballantyne, Chadley. "The Second Vocal Tract Resonance: fR2 Strategies in Performance and in the Studio." Pan American Vocology Association Symposium, Toronto, Canada, 2017.
National Conferences
Ballantyne, Chadley, Allen Henderson, John Nix, Nicholas Perna, and Yvonne Gonzales Redman. "The Feedback Loop: Tuning Vocal Pedagogy with Peer Review." NATS National Conference, San Antonio, TX, 2026.
Howell, Ian, Kayla Gautereaux, and Chadley Ballantyne. "Special Acts of Breathing: Visualizing Interactive Aspects of Respiration for Singing with RespTrack." NATS National Conference, San Antonio, TX, 2026.
Ballantyne, Chadley, Eloisy Goncalves, and Ian Howell. "Where Sound Meets Touch: A Study on Vibrotactile Perception in the Singing Voice." NATS National Conference, San Antonio, TX, 2026.
Ballantyne, Chadley. "Pure Sound vs. Rough Sensation: Sorting the Sensations of the Sung Tone." The Voice Foundation Symposium, Philadelphia, PA, 2024; also presented as a poster at the NATS National Conference, Knoxville, TN, 2024.
Ballantyne, Chadley, and Alyson Culbertson. "Antagonism in the Voice Studio: Discovery Through Range of Motion and Contrasting Sounds." NATS National Conference, Knoxville, TN, 2024; The Voice Foundation Symposium, Philadelphia, PA, 2023.
Ballantyne, Chadley, Joshua Glasner, and Alyson Culbertson. "High Frequency Energy in Commercial Recordings." The Voice Foundation Symposium, Philadelphia, PA, 2023.
Ballantyne, Chadley. "Modular Framework for Singing Instruction." NATS National Conference, Chicago, IL, 2022.
Ballantyne, Chadley, Kenneth Bozeman, and Ian Howell. "Acoustic and Perceptual Voice Pedagogy: From Impulse and Affect to Pedagogy and Performance." Pre-Conference Workshop, NATS National Conference, 2020.
Ballantyne, Chadley, and Karen Brunssen. "The Evolving Singing Voice: Adolescence." American Choral Directors Association National Conference, Kansas City, MO, 2019.
Ballantyne, Chadley. "Fun with Vocal Tract Resonances!" VASTA/PAVA Joint Conference, Seattle, WA, 2018.
Ballantyne, Chadley. "The Second Vocal Tract Resonance: fR2 Strategies in Performance and in the Studio." NATS National Conference, Las Vegas, NV, 2018.
Regional Conferences
Ballantyne, Chadley. "Sound Guidance: Using Auditory and Language Targets in the Studio." National Opera Association Southeast Regional Conference, Columbus, GA, 2020.
Ballantyne, Chadley. "Working with Overtone Analyzer in the Studio and for Research." NATS Central Region Conference, Northern Illinois University, 2017.
Selected Invited Presentations and Guest Lectures
Ballantyne, Chadley. "Perception of High and Low Frequency Energy in Singing for Applied Instruction." 11th International Voice Seminars: Voice–Body–Expression, Mix Singers Association, Poland, 2024.
Ballantyne, Chadley, and Maia Nystrum Braden. "Adolescent Voice Perspectives." The Voice Foundation, Alabama Chapter, 2023.
Guest lectures on pedagogy, resonance, and high frequency energy at the University of Michigan (2023), Northwestern University (2023), Georgia Southern University (2022), the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2022), and Louisiana State University (2022).
Ballantyne, Chadley. "High Frequency Energy in Singing." Israeli Voice Association Webinar, Tel Aviv, Israel, 2021.
Ballantyne, Chadley. "The Anatomy of Pitch Change" and "The Anatomy of Registers." Vocal Health Education, London, England, 2021.
Acoustic Vocal Pedagogy Workshop
Co-Instructor with Kenneth Bozeman and Ian Howell, presented by the Embodied Music Lab, 2018–present. Offered as a weeklong in-person workshop and a globally attended online course, at venues including New England Conservatory, the University of Michigan, and Stetson University.
![Chadley Laryx Drawing[1].jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d1deae_052fca9c7e644c8ca08d8df2f0d3668a~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_286,h_377,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/Chadley%20Laryx%20Drawing%5B1%5D.jpg)
Drawings by Chadley Ballantyne