For students with dreams of pursuing a career in voice, Binghamton University’s music department can help make your creative vision a reality. That’s already becoming the case for five of our own singers.

BU Students Daniela Rivera, Caitlin Gotimer, Charles Hyland, Robert-Heepyoung Oh and Hana Ryu attended the 2013 National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Competition hosted by Ithaca College of Music on March 15-17. Over 150 students from New York state competed, including singers from Eastman School of Music, West Virginia University and Ithaca College. Lost in a sea of seasoned performers and conservatory students, Binghamton’s five competitors went in with a lot to prove. But after the three-day singing tournament, the big-time music schools are singing our praises, because Binghamton had more first-place winners than any other school in the competition.

Gotimer, a freshman majoring in music performance, placed first in the sophomore female division.

“It took a few seconds before I realized that for every category a BU student was in, the BU student won first place,” she said.

Rivera, Gotimer, Hyland and Oh all placed first in their categories, while Hana Ryu placed second behind Oh in the graduate student division. Oh not only won first place at the NATS competition in Ithaca but also won the 2013 Metropolitan Opera international competition and will be performing at Carnegie Hall.

The voice students are looking forward to fostering their vocal talents in their time at BU, and are quickly proving that you don’t need to attend a private conservatory to go after your creative goals.

Rivera, a freshman majoring in music, placed first in the freshman women division. She said she owes her success, in part, to the department.

“Since I’ve been here, Binghamton’s music program has helped my singing and overall performance ability improve greatly,” she said. “This is largely due to my wonderful voice teacher Thomas Goodheart and generally all the faculty in the department. They are all here and working to give us the best tools to continue on a path towards an opera career. I truly believe that.”

For Gotimer, Binghamton’s music program brought out the opera singer in her.

“I never even thought about opera before I got to Binghamton, she said. “I auditioned for voice lessons thinking it would be nice to learn something about my hobby. Needless to say, it all took off from there.”

The music program helps to develop students’ vocal skills through performance classes and by teaming up with local outlets like the TriCities Opera.

“In my first year at Binghamton, I performed in tons of concerts, I sang a small role in TriCities Opera’s production of ‘The Magic Flute,’ and I was the soloist at the University’s commencement ceremonies,” Gotimer said. “This year, I’ve had just as many opportunities, one being the NATS competition.”

More BU students are putting our music program on the map and the amount of student-community musical collaboration is quickly increasing. It’s exciting to see how the program will expand further next year, because it’s already apparent we should be taking our music program more seriously here.

“Binghamton’s music program is as legitimate and serious as any other school’s program from liberal arts to conservatory status,” Rivera said. “Sometimes I feel that not enough people know that. Binghamton’s music program is one to look out for because I guarantee that it is only going to get bigger and better from here.”

Take the summer to warm up the vocal chords, opera students, because come fall we’re expecting even more great things. For more information on the voice programs at Binghamton, call the Binghamton University Music Department at (607) 777-2592, visit www.binghamton.edu/music or become a fan on Facebook.