About Transylvania

Manring specializes in classical technique and remains committed to helping singers develop naturally, build strength, and free their voices.

Transylvania prides itself on nurturing a liberal arts course of study that encourages students to find connections between the different academic disciplines. Joanna Manring’s projects tend to fold together literature and music and history and art.

For example, in 2009 Manring created the Jane Austen Singing School for Young Ladies in Skaneateles, N.Y. Girls from 12–18 years of age perform music from the Georgian era—including “music that Jane Austen and her family loved and sang themselves”—while also working on vocal technique and public speaking skills.

In another project, Manring mined some personal family history to develop a libretto titled On the Altar of His Country drawn from letters her fourth-great grandmother wrote to a family friend while he was serving in the Civil War. (He was 26; she was 13.) The piece, set to music by Josh Daniel Coles, is written for soprano, baritone, speaker, and piano quintet.

As a performer, Manring is comfortable with a variety of music styles, from opera to musicals to a one-woman cabaret show called “Divalicious.” She has been described as a “stylish, vibrant” singer by David Gordon of the Carmel Bach Festival. Manring made her summer festival debut in 2009 singing Bach’s Cantata 51, Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, at the Skaneateles Chamber Music Festival in New York. A writer for the Syracuse Post Standard commented on her “expressive vocals that opened up a sense of tenderness… that reached to the farthest seats on the grounds.” In 2010, she was a guest artist for a performance of Vivaldi’s Gloria (RV 589) at Colorado’s Steamboat Springs Strings Festival.

Manring also serves as the director of music at Woodland Christian Church in Lexington, Ky. She enjoys working with beginning singers as well as advanced performers.

Manring is pictured playing Pamina in The Magic Flute with CRS Barn Studio in Ithaca, N.Y.