OCU vocal professor Florence Birdwell, who taught Tony winners, dies
Birdwell taught Tony winners Kristin Chenoweth and Kelli O'Hara
Renowned voice professor Florence Birdwell — who mentored Tony Award winners Kristin Chenoweth and Kelli O'Hara as well as hundreds of other Oklahoma City University students over nearly seven decades of teaching — died Monday. She was 96.
“If you're lucky, you get one teacher who is YOUR PERSON. Mine is Florence Birdwell. Your voice rings in my ear forever, Florence. RIP Mrs. Birdwell. I will miss you as long as I live,” Chenoweth posted on Twitter Monday.
One of the longest-serving faculty members in OCU's history at 67 years, Birdwell also was an OCU alumna who earned her bachelor of arts there in 1945 and her master of arts in teaching in 1969.
“The Oklahoma City University community mourns the passing of a true treasure of our campus,” OCU President Martha Burger said in a statement. “Florence Birdwell's impact is felt far beyond the studios and classrooms where she helped so many students develop their talents over her near-seven-decade career. It extends to stages and theaters around the country and world, and to the hundreds of musical careers she has
helped shape.”
Passion for teaching
Florence Gillam Hobin Birdwell was born Sept. 3, 1924, in Douglas, Arizona. She grew up in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Lawton, graduating from Lawton High School in 1941.
Birdwell often attributed her teaching success to the techniques she
learned while recovering from a throat injury she sustained when she was 21.
“I had an infection in my throat that had really destroyed my larynx at that time. Later on I had a surgery here,” she told The Oklahoman, touching her throat.
“When I called in tears to my teacher (she said) `No, no, you must not cry. You cannot sing now, maybe, but you can certainly talk.' Well, I did. And I'm still doing that.”
Her teacher, Inez Silberg, recommended that Birdwell turn to teaching and sent her three students.
“Each of one of them was terribly lost in some way or another … so I worked with them,” Birdwell told The Oklahoman.
“And what I learned was warmth and caring and love. And it stayed with me all my teaching life.”
Making demands
As an undergraduate, Birdwell worked part time for OCU as a vocal instructor. She taught full time at the university from 1946 until her retirement in 2014. While at OCU she met Robert Lee “Bob” Birdwell, and they were married from 1945 until his death in 2003.
“As she often said, she taught voice and she taught life. A rarity in the profession of voice teaching, she was equally passionate about opera and musical theater,” said Mark Parker, dean of OCU's Wanda L. Bass School of Music, in a statement.
Birdwell developed a reputation as a demanding teacher. She told The Oklahoman she had many students leave her studio teary-eyed and heartbroken over the years, but she never apologized for it. Most of them came back the next day ready to learn more.
Chenoweth was one of those. “When I arrived at OCU, we had master class, where we all sang in front of the other people and we get critiqued by her. And I remember I sang `New York, New York,' with jazz hands, and I got done and everybody clapped. I thought I really nailed it, and she said, `Oh, I can't wait to teach you how to sing,'” Chenoweth recalled in a 2015 OCU interview.
“And I spent a week devastated with my heart at my feet not understanding what she meant, but of course, over the five and a half years at OCU, I began to understand what she meant, which was, `I'm going to teach you how to sing, yes technically better, I'm going to teach you how to sing from the heart, I'm going to teach you that it's not just about the melody, it's also about the lyric.'”
Widespread influence
In 2015, Birdwell achieved the rare feat of having two of her former students nominated for Tony Awards in the same category in the same year as Chenoweth and O'Hara were both contenders for best leading actress in a musical. When O'Hara won the Tony for her role in the revival of “The King and I,” she dedicated her victory to Birdwell.
“I come from a place far away and there's a little teacher there, and two of us tonight, Kristin and I, share her. Florence Birdwell, thank you,” O'Hara said in her Tony acceptance speech.
Birdwell was a Governor's Arts Award recipient and an Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame member. OCU awarded her with an honorary doctor of musical arts in 2016.
Along with her husband, Birdwell was preceded in death by her younger son, Todd Albert Birdwell, in 1980. She is survived by her daughter, Robyn Birdwell; son, Brian Birdwell; grandchildren, Hayden Rockson, Ned Rockson, Sophie Birdwell, Colin Rockson, Fletcher Birdwell, Thomas Birdwell and Grace Kathryn Birdwell; and one greatgrandson, Truman Posterro.
Memorial contributions may be made to the Robert & Florence Birdwell Endowed Vocal Scholarship at www. okcu.edu/birdwell.