With more than 40 years as a performer and voice teacher, Tom McKinney has created and mastered “The Ease of Speech Singing Technique”. Tom’s vocal training for many years as a student of Seth Riggs, of Los Angeles, and later with Mr. Riggs’ mentor and teacher, the late Keith Davis, of New York City, have garnered him many awards and accolades as a performer and vocal techniques teacher. Tom and his wife, Colleen, currently have more than 150 students in their four studio locations, and have taught over 3000 students in the past 20 years, in the pop, R & B, country, contemporary Christian, rock, gospel, jazz and blues genres with special emphasis on musical theatre.
While training with his mentor, Riggs & Davis, Tom validated his talents by winning The Metropolitan Opera Soloist Award in 1971, going on to have an extended operatic career in Europe, the US, and many parts of the world. He has starred in more than 25 operas, 60 musicals, and numerous concert performances worldwide and has taken the stage with such entertainment icons as Milton Berle, Burt Lancaster, Vincent Price, Van Johnson, Burt Reynolds, Placido Domingo, Jose Ferrer and Beverly Sills, just to name a few. Tom’s television credits include The Merv Griffin Show and Johnny Carson’s, The Tonight Show, and four seasons as the lead judge on Houston’s popular regional talent search, “Gimme The Mic!” (NBC). His list of students, who go on to pursue their “American Idol” dreams in Los Angeles, continues to grow with such past contestants as Will Makar, and Robin Troupe, (2008 Grammy Award Show Talent Winner with Justin Timberlake). Four of his students made it to Hollywood for this years “Idol” competition!
January of 2002 found him opening the Tom McKinney Vocal Studios after many years with Mr. Riggs’ Speech Level Singing Institute (SLSI), where he attained the highest level of teaching proficiency and a place on the Management Team with the SLSI program. Tom also gives great credit for his vocal and teaching success to his first voice teacher, starting at age 11, to Mr. Bill Schahn of Ft. Worth, TX.
Tom and Colleen have studios in Houston and Dallas, and are frequent guest lecturers, and vocal and performance skills instructors in New York, Italy and Germany. Their student roster has grown to more than 150 in the U.S. and Europe, with a number of them touring nationally in Broadway shows, or signed with major recording labels. Together, they have formed a Talent Development program under their “Entertainment Arts Project”, working with a “team” of established professionals in the music industry to groom aspiring artists. Tom also serves as the New Talent Development Vocal Technique Instructor for Beyonce and Mathew Knowles’ Recording and Publishing Company, Music World, in Houston.
A current member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS), Tom continues to serve as a talent judge and coach for pageants, and college prep auditions, as well as working professional artists. He was a National Judge for “America’s Junior Miss Competition”, in Mobile, Alabama, in 2007, and has been frequently recognized locally as the lead judge on Houston’s popular regional talent search, “Gimme The Mic!” which ran for four seasons on NBC.
Today, Tom’s greatest satisfaction comes from teaching and developing the talent embodied in his students, by providing direction for those wishing to make a career in music and entertainment. His knowledge and experience are supported by his affiliations with some of today’s top music industry professionals – people like Brett Manning, Vocal Instructor to many of the biggest names in Nashville, and judge on the CMT Show, “Can You Duet”. Tom works closely with some of the most successful music producers, A & R managers, song writers, and record labels in the country.
