Erie Mills, Associate Professor of Music, San Jose State University
2008 Regional Judge

Soprano Erie Mills joined the San José State University music faculty in 1998. Since her operatic debut in 1977, she has received critical acclaim throughout the world. She has performed in the world’s major opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Vienna Staatsoper, English National Opera, New York City Opera, and Santa Fe Opera. In 2001 Ms. Mills appeared as Aurelia Havisham in a new production of Dominick Argento’s Miss Havisham’s Fire with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis and was hailed by the NY Times as "the star the vehicle was waiting for." Ms. Mills is an active concert artist, having appeared with the orchestras of Chicago , Philadelphia, St. Louis, Cleveland, Boston, Los Angeles, Mostly Mozart Festival, and the VARA Radio Orchestra at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. She made be heard on recordings with RCA, Newport Classic, Arabesque, and VAI, and also the Grammy award-winning Candide with New World Records. An active recitalist, in 2004 Ms. Mills premiered Kenneth Frazelle’s From the Song of Songs at San Jose State and also performed the cycle in Chicago, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, and at BYU in Provo, Utah. She is also in demand for master classes and her adjudication activites include the NATS and the Metropolitan Opera National Council. A graduate of the College of Wooster in Ohio and the University of Illinois, she lives in Pleasanton with her husband Dr. Thomas Rescigno.

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