William Pu Music Academy is thrilled to welcome our new voice teacher, Dr. Francisca Vanherle Maxwell to join the excellent faculty team of the William Pu Music Academy. Dr. Maxwell has many years of teaching experiences on voice and has helped many young and adult students on winning positions in Voice competitions, All-State chorus, local chorus, musical theatre and church solo auditions.
The soprano Francisca Vanherle Maxwell was born in Argentina but grew up in Belgium. She studied at the Royal Conservatorium in Brussels, where she obtained a Bachelor’s and a Master’s Degree in Vocal Arts and a diploma in Vocal Pedagogy. She first worked as a free-lance member of the Brussels Cathedral Choir and the VRT National Radio Choir. She also participated on a regular basis in the vocal ensembles of La Petite Bande, Huelgas, Anima Eterna, Il Fondamento and Currende.
In 1997, she was granted a Fulbright Scholarship by the Commission or Educational Exchange between the USA and Belgium and Luxembourg. With this scholarship, she continued her education at the University of Texas at Austin where she studied voice and opera. She graduated as a Doctor of Musical Arts in Voice Performance in 2002.
Francisca has been staged in leading roles of many operas and operettas, among which L’Incorronazione di Poppea, Dido and Aeneas, Rinaldo, Alcina, Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Fledermaus, Eine Nacht in Venedig and Paganini. She equally portrays herself in oratorio, recitals and chamber music. As a member of the Atlanta-based early music group Harmonie Universelle, she performs regularly in the Southwestern United States. She is also a frequent soloist with the Belgian ensemble PhiloMelante. Francisca has been featured several times on public radio in the program “The Atlanta Music Scene”. She recently performed with the Georgia Institute of Technology Orchestra and Choir in Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang, in Bach’s St John’s Passion and in the Requiem by Jerry Ulrich. Her concert life has taken her all over Europe, Russia and the United States. She teaches voice at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, GA and maintains a thriving private studio.
