Shanelle Woods currently serves as Education Coordinator at YPC and has been applying her many talents to the choral group for the past two years. Shanelle joined YPC not only because of their commitment to diversity and artistic excellence, but because she recognized the value in the type of education and experiences YPC provides for its choristers.

In addition to helping provide choristers with supplemental academic support programs geared towards life skills, financial literacy, academic subject and/or standardized test tutoring, and college application support, Shanelle helps evaluate all of YPC’s in-house programming through a Social Emotional Learning lens. She also teaches private voice lessons through YPC’s Vocal Area Program.

Prior to joining the YPC family, Shanelle worked as adjunct professor of voice at Charleston Southern and Claflin University, as well as Voice Teacher at FAME Performing Arts. She arrived at YPC directly from the opera stage, where she made her role debut as Carmen in the Bizet opera. Other professional credits include roles in The Crucible, Hair, Porgy and Bess, The Judge in the world premiere of the hip-hop opera, Stomping Grounds, commissioned and presented by Glimmerglass Opera, and a digital production of Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera with City Lyric Opera. In spring of 2022, Shanelle will commission a new work with Fordham University’s Voices Up! Series.

Shanelle’s undergraduate and master’s degrees are both in Voice Performance. She was recently admitted to the Vocal Pedagogy program at New York University, where she is completing an Advanced Certificate in Vocal Pedagogy. She is looking forward to taking on adjunct voice faculty work at NYU while completing the program and continuing her role at YPC.