Soprano Jane K. Dressler has distinguished herself as a performer of song, chamber music repertory, and oratorio literature. Jane Dressler has completed degrees in voice performance from the University of North Carolina Greensboro (DMA), Indiana University (MM), University of Iowa (MA), and the University of Nebraska (BM).
Since joining the Kent State University faculty, Professor Dressler has sung more than eighty performances in Ohio, including recitals at the Cleveland Institute of Music, the Toledo Museum of Art and the Ariel Theatre.
During June 2000, Dr. Dressler presented the national premiere of the song cycle, MY ANTONIA, written for her by American composer Libby Larsen. The song cycle was heard as part of a lecture recital titled “Willa Cather: Her World of Music.” Its premiere took place at the International Seminar on Willa Cather 2000 in Nebraska City, Nebraska. The project received funding from the National Endowment of the Arts, the Ohio Arts Council, the Nebraska Arts Council, and the Nebraska Humanities Council. Since 2000, Dressler has sung the work sixteen times in the greater Midwest, including performances in Iowa, Missouri, Michigan, and Ohio. As well, the soprano performed MY ANTONIA as part of the prestigious Sixth Festival of Women Composers (2001) at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Dressler has received two Kent State University grants to complete research with Cather-related materials at the Chicago Historical Society and the Newberry Library (July 2002 & July 2003.) The soprano has since presented research papers at international Cather studies conferences (2003, 2005) and at the National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention (2004). In Fall 2005, her article, “Cather’s World of Music: Chicago, Fremstad, and Kronborg,” was published in Teaching Cather.
In 1997 Dressler recorded Dvorak songs and duets with mezzo-soprano Mary Sue Hyatt
for Time-Grabber Digital label of Tempe, AZ. During 1995-1999, Dr. Dressler performed with the Kent Camerata, a chamber music ensemble affiliated with the School of Music. International performances of the Kent Camerata during that time included concerts in Canada, Ireland, and Italy; American performances included concerts in the greater Phoenix-Tempe (AZ) area, Maine, Ohio, Vermont, and West Virginia.