Turkish mezzo-soprano and Fulbright alumna Dr. Lori Şen is known for her versatility in many vocal genres, including opera, art song, musical theatre, and jazz, as well as for her teaching and research interests in vocal literature, voice pedagogy, and voice science. Dr. Şen regularly collaborates with musicians and composers across a variety of genres, and has performed in Turkey, Europe, and the United States.
A leading expert of the Sephardic art song genre, Dr. Şen is the first ever to catalogue this repertoire that comprises Western classical settings and arrangements of traditional Sephardic folk literature. She is also the first to create a Ladino diction guide exclusively for singers who would like to sing Sephardic songs in their original language. Since 2018, she has introduced this genre and her research to audiences through her solo recitals and lectures at various conferences and festivals, several organizations in the United States, and the Barcelona Festival of Song in Spain.
Dr. Şen completed her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Voice Performance at the University of Maryland, College Park, and received her Master of Music in Voice Performance and Pedagogy at Westminster Choir College, in Princeton, NJ, as a Fulbright grantee. She also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physics from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, in addition to a Bachelor of Music degree in Voice and a Master of Education degree in Physics Education from Dokuz Eylül University in Izmir, Turkey. She is an active member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), The Voice Foundation, and the Fulbright Association.
Dr. Şen is also on the voice faculty at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland, College Park, and Howard Community College. She has an active performing and teaching schedule in the United States and abroad. She also serves as an ambassador for the Barcelona Festival of Song, and is a board member at the International Florence Price Festival.
Vocal Pedagogy