Bio

My favorite quote is "The only better than singing is more singing" spoken by the amazing Ella Fitzgerald.

I grew up in NYC and, having been raised by theatrical parents, my life has always been filled with music. I'm pretty sure I started singing as soon as I could make noise. Most of my playtime was devoted to putting on shows with my friends and later performing them for my parents and their friends.

When I was eight years old I joined the Riverside Church's Children's Antiphonal Choir and continued in Choirs at Riverside for the next 10 years. During this time, I was selected from the children's choir to record -in Chorus and as a soloist- for Triton Records Educational Music, a division of Holt Rinehart & Winston.

As a teenager I wrote songs and performed at coffee houses and bars in the NYC area. One of my songs was performed on the television show "One Life to Live"

After taking several years off to raise my family, I returned to performing in 2001 at which time I performed, co-wrote and produced "Survive It: A Reality Cabaret" with Margaret Curry and Ave Lindon. The show, with direction from Johnny King and musical direction from David Epstein, was performed to sold out audiences at Danny's Skylight Cabaret Room and later at Don't Tell Mama.

In 2005, I made my solo cabaret debut with "I Wanna Be Yours" at Danny's Skylight Cabaret Room with Timo Elliston on piano/co-aranger and Bob Bowen on bass. It was also in 2005 that I won the Andy Anselmo award, presented at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Allen Room. There I shared the stage with Liz Hampton Calloway, Jerome Hardemann-Harmon, Barbara Fasano, Margaret Curry and Thos Shipley. I performed again with Jerome Hardemann-Harmon, as well as Leslie Uggums, at the Hudson Guild Theater in 2006. I've gone on to perform at Birdland, Don't Tell Mama, and the Hudson Guild Theater, among other locations.

I've studied at HB Studios and Singer's Forum. I've been very fortunate to have worked with the late George Axletree, Johnny King and Phil Campanella. I currently study Eric Michael Gillett and Lennie Watts. I've attended the "Summer in the City" cabaret, an intensive, five day workshop founded by Lennie Watts and Lina Koutrakis, which featured guest teachers and musical directors including Steven Ray Watkins, Rick Jensen, Karen Mason, K.T. Sullivan, and Alex Rybek.

Currently, in addition to continuing to perform, I am also a voice teacher and have been working at the Singer's Forum since 2001. Teaching classes and private lessons, I also work with children aged 8 - 18 in the Singer's Forum Scholarship program in NYC and in Princeton, NJ. In 2007 Westminster Conservatory took over the Princeton division keeping me on as a teacher and renaming the program to "the Philip A Campanella Princeton Vocal Scholarship for Youth"