Todd Fortier holds a Master of Music degree from Duquesne University. There he studied under Claudia Pinza, daughter of famed Metropolitan Opera Bass Ezio Pinza. During his studies with Ms. Pinza, he participated in her summer opera training program EPCASO. While in Pittsburgh he performed in numerous productions locally with Pittsburgh Opera, Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera. After finishing graduate school, he moved to NYC where he lived, performed and coached with many top teachers in the operatic field. After 8 years in NYC he returned to the Milwaukee area and started to teach. While there, his students performed and were cast in lead roles with many regional companies including Milwaukee Rep, The Fireside, Waukesha Civic Theater, Lake Country Players, Skylight Music Theater, First Stage, and Sunset Playhouse Rising Artists.
Mr. Fortier has served as adjunct faculty teaching private voice at Pius XI High School in Milwaukee and adjunct voice faculty at University of Wisconsin-Parkside. He is a full member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) where his students have been finalist and award winners in the Wisconsin Chapter NATS auditions in both classical and musical theater divisions the last 10 years. Many of his students have been accepted into outstanding music departments such as Berklee School of Music, Indiana University, Roosevelt University, Illinois Wesleyan, Luther College, UW Stevens Point Musical Theater Program, Viterbo University, Northwestern University, UW-Madison, Baldwin-Wallace University, NYU, Florida State University, and Carnegie Mellon University for Classical, Musical Theater, and Contemporary Music with some receiving top voice scholarships at these schools.
Current and former students have received Exemplary Soloist Awards for both Classical and Musical Theater Solos at WSMA State Solo and Ensemble Festival as well as being accepted into Wisconsin State Honors Choir on both middle and high school levels. A trained classical singer, Mr. Fortier has been studying and learning more contemporary styles of singing as of late. He is certified to Level 2 of Somatic Voicework™ The LoVetri Method which is a body-based method of vocal training which draws from many disciplines. It is based on voice science and medicine as well as traditional classical vocal training. This method is used a great deal in CCM or Contemporary Commercial Music styles such as jazz, musical theater, country, and pop. In February 2018, he was asked to serve as a guest voice clinician at the Vocal Arts Festival at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Todd also enjoys working with injured voices. Back in 2016, he experienced a voice injury due to a major surgery and was told may never fully reagin the use of his singing voice. After hard work and proper guidance, he gained full use of his voice again. With the knowledge he learned from this experience, he feels drawn to helping other singers and voice users who have suffered vocal trauma to work to gain their voices and learn to sing and speak with confidence again.