Dean Southern, DMA, is Vice President of Academic Affairs & Dean of the Institute at the Cleveland Institute of Music (CIM). He is also a member of CIM’s voice faculty and has a diverse musical background as a singer, pianist, and stage director.

Venues at which he has given master classes in the US and abroad include Central Conservatory of Music and China Conservatory of Music (Beijing, China), Wuhan Conservatory of Music (Wuhan, China), Shenzhen Art School (Shenzhen, China), Kungliga Musikhögskolan (Royal College of Music, Stockholm, Sweden), Conservatorio Profesional de Música (Valencia, Spain), Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, and the Interlochen Arts Academy (Michigan), as well as chapters of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) across the country. His students have been accepted to prestigious young artist programs and graduate schools and awarded the Fulbright grant, and they have gone on to successful careers as performers and voice teachers.

Southern was a master teacher for the 2020 NATS Intern Program, where he mentored early career professional voice teachers. He spent eleven years on the faculty of the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, and he has since taught at summer programs in Italy, China, California, and Massachusetts. Southern was a jury member of the Bologna International Vocal Competition in Italy and he has served as an adjudicator for competitions in Austria, China, and across the US.

As Artistic Director of Opera Theater at CIM from 2018 to 2023, he staged productions of L’enfant et les sortlièges (Ravel), Le rossignol (Stravinsky), The Juniper Tree (Glass/Moran), and Die Zauberflöte (Mozart). He also wrote and narrated A Century of Singing at CIM in celebration of the institution’s 100^th anniversary and was executive producer of Dido and Aeneas: A Cinematic Opera, which was honored by OPERA America.

Classical Singer magazine has published his column “Distant Voices: Listening to Singer of the Past,” as well as his articles “Breaking Barriers: Four Pioneering African American Singers in Opera,” “Practicing 101: Ten Tips for Making the Most of Your Time between Lessons,” “Practicing with your Mouth Shut,” and his interview with legendary mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig. He has given his “Distant Voices” and

“Breaking Barriers” lectures, which are multimedia guided tours to singers of the past, at many colleges, universities, NATS chapters, and arts organizations. Classical Singer featured him in a teacher spotlight on their website in 2019, and he was interviewed for the Chinese-language magazine Art of Singing in 2015.

After graduating from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, he earned master’s degrees in piano performance from the University of Missouri and in voice performance from the University of

Akron. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in voice performance from CIM.

Prior to his appointment at CIM, he taught voice and was stage director of opera at the University of Miami Frost School of Music in Coral Gables, Florida.