Erin Schwab, Executive Director

Erin Schwab is an American Soprano based in Northern New Jersey. She is an experienced performer, arts administrator, and teaching artist with a special interest in the intersection of the arts, social action, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

She holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Music from Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts, where she studied Vocal Performance with Judith Nicosia and was the recipient of the Michael Fardink award for “Outstanding Vocalist” as well as the Olga Marsano Burian award for “Outstanding Achievement in Music”. She received further vocal and stage training through scholarships at Lorin and Dietlinde Maazel’s Castleton Festival, The Chautauqua Institution’s Opera Conservatory, and an artist residency at The Crested Butte Music Festival.

She is adept at multiple styles of singing and performance practice, ranging from the Renaissance through the 21st century, and has portrayed many operatic roles. In June 2025, she originated the role of Ma (Margaret White) in No Man’s Land, a new opera by composer Whitney George. Before that, in February 2025, she portrayed the role of the Sandman in Bronx Opera’s production of Hansel & Gretel. In 2024, she participated in the premiere of a devised opera by Director Jennifer Williams called Dis/Inform, created through a collaborative compositional process with an ensemble of musicians and visual artists, and generating a final performance around structured improvisation.

Erin’s profound passion for music has led her to pursue a career working in arts administration roles alongside her singing endeavors, encompassing aspects of marketing, development, event production, chorus management, and beyond. For Erin, working to sustain and promote the arts began with admin internships taken on during her graduate studies, first with Carl Fischer Music Publishing in NYC and then the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, NJ. Also around that same time, she became more active as a teaching artist and as an admin in an academic setting while teaching a vocal class for undergraduates at Rutgers New Brunswick and serving as a T.A. for the Rutgers University Choir. From 2015-2019, she returned to her roots to serve as Assistant Choral Director for the Lakeland Regional High School Chorale, joining them for tours to Canada, Maryland, and Carnegie Hall.

Today, Erin works as the Executive Director of Skylands Music Academy. She also serves as a board member for the Ringwood Friends of Music, an organization that she’s performed and volunteered with since her teen years. Since 2023, she has chaired the Ringwood Friends of Music Youth Performance Festival, an annual opportunity for Northern New Jersey students to share their music in a non-competitive and supportive environment. 

Erin is also the current Director of Design for PROTESTRA (protest + orchestra), a nonprofit organization with the mission of educating audiences about social justice issues through the context of classical music, all while raising important funds for the causes from which the concerts’ themes are based. From 2022–2025 she served as the Chorus Manager for Downtown Voices, a semiprofessional choir in NYC conducted by Stephen Sands made up of volunteer singers and professional members of the Trinity Choir. During her time there, the group saw their Carnegie Hall premiere with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of JoAnn Falletta, and became GRAMMY-nominated in the category of Best Choral Performance for their work on the world premiere of Benedict Sheehan’s oratorio, Akathist.

Learn more at erinschwabsoprano.com.