Nina Cole Garguilo

Originally from Memphis, Nina Cole has been performing and teaching in the Phoenix area since 2011. Most recently, she performed as Sarah in Harrower Opera's Ballad of Baby Doe. In 2016, she performed her “Southern Comfort” recital series in New York City and Brooklyn. She has also performed roles including Despina (Così fan tutte) Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi), Bellomy (The Fantasticks), and Fleta (Iolanthe) and Maria (West Side Story). In the summer of 2013, Nina sang the title role in Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank at the Mittelsächsisches Theater in Freiberg, Germany.

In addition to opera and musical theatre performances, Nina has been featured in many choral works. While obtaining her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Mississippi, Nina was a soloist for Ola Gjeilo’s “Tundra” and his premieres of “Liberation of Ellisbell” and “New York I & II”. In 2012, she began work as a professional chorister with the Grammy Award-winning Phoenix Chorale. In 2015, Nina was the featured soprano soloist in Brahms’ Ein deutches Requiem. Winning ‘Best Choral Performance’ on the album Rachmaninoff: All-Night Vigil, Nina also shared in the 2015 Grammy Award. She completed the Doctoral of Musical Arts degree in Voice Performance at Arizona State University in 2017, where she held assistantship from 2013-2015.  Since then, she has been teaching voice and actively recruiting at Phoenix College.

Nina loves helping singers of all ages and abilities and aims to instill confidence in her students, whether they be learning new techniques or preparing for stage performance. She finds joy in exploring style and traits of American music, especially dialect, and she seeks to promote American Opera, Art Song, and Broadway repertoire in her own work as well as in her teaching.