Professor, World-Renowned Singer Barbara Hill Moore Receives SMU Faculty Career Achievement Award

DALLAS (SMU) – With an SMU career spanning nearly five decades in the Meadows School of the Arts, Barbara Hill Moore has been named the recipient of the 2022 Faculty Career Achievement Award for her contributions to the teaching, scholarship, and service missions of the University.

"I am truly honored to cap off my career at Meadows by accepting this wonderful award of recognition,” said Hill Moore, senior associate dean for faculty and Meadows Foundation Distinguished Professor of Voice. “SMU offered me the opportunity to teach, mentor, and advise many of the university’s biggest and brightest singing talents during my nearly 50 years here at the Hilltop and I’ll be forever grateful for that.”

Hill Moore, a world-renowned opera singer and voice teacher, began teaching at Meadows in 1974 and served as chair of the voice department from 1977 through 1992. In the summer of 2011, she founded and began directing an international study abroad program, SMU-in-South-Africa, built around teaching and directing a class in musical theater hosted by the Opera School and Choral Academy (OSCA) of the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) in Durban, South Africa. 

“It is very fitting that we recognize the extraordinary ways Professor Hill Moore exemplifies SMU’s aspirations,” said SMU Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Elizabeth Loboa. “Barbara is precisely the type of faculty member who has – and will continue to – lead us in our pursuit of even greater academic quality. Her teaching, artistic, and service contributions have enriched our community.”

Hill Moore has performed with orchestras throughout the United States and Europe. She was a frequent performer in Western Europe, especially Germany, where she sang in opera concerts and recitals, premiering the works of many American composers.

Her most recent performances include Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with the SMU Meadows Symphony Orchestra, Hector Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’Ete with the Sherman Symphony, Porgy and Bess with the Victoria Symphony, and solo recitals in Nürnberg, Hannover, Hameln, Heilbronn and Weilheim, Germany, as well as Numana and Ancona, Italy.

In recent years, Hill Moore has focused on teaching, mentoring, and advising aspiring young vocal artists in classes, private lessons, and advisory sessions throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Former students of Hill Moore have been featured with opera companies throughout the world, including the St. Louis Opera, Houston Opera, Dallas Opera, New York City Opera, La Scala, Salzburg Opera, San Francisco Opera, Chicago Opera, Paris Opera, Berlin Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Fort Worth Opera and Cape Town Opera. 

Hill Moore also founded SPIRITUAL VOICES in 1990, an ensemble of five soloists and accompanists that have sung throughout the United States and Europe, specializing in performing the earliest composed Negro spirituals and African American art song repertory.

Hill Moore is a recipient of SMU’s prestigious M Award. She was named Meadows Foundation Distinguished Professor of Voice in May 2005 and named SMU Distinguished University Citizen in 2009-10. In March 2010, the South Dallas Business and Professional Women’s Club honored Hill Moore as a trailblazer for her excellence in education. Through the Barbara Hill Moore and Bruce R. Foote Foundation, Hill Moore awards scholarships to underrepresented students in SMU’s Graduate and Artist Certificate Programs that are pursuing an advanced degree in classical vocal study.

Prior to her SMU appointment, Hill Moore taught at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, the St. Louis Public School System, and the St. Louis Archdiocese. She received a B.S. from Lincoln University of Missouri and an M.S. as a graduate fellow from the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois.

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