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The American neuroscientist & mezzo-soprano, Colleen Hancock (formerly: Colleen McGonigle), earned her Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience from Bucknell University, where she graduated summa cum laude with honors (2017). She also completed the degree program for a Bachelor of Arts in Vocal Performance and studied under Emily Martin-Moberley (2017). Through the duration of her time at Bucknell, she was awarded with Arts Merit, Dean’s and Rooke Chapel Ringer’s scholarships. She was also honored with senior departmental awards in music and neuroscience. She obtained her Master of Music in Vocal Performance from the Peabody Conservatory of the Johns Hopkins University (May 2019), where she studied with Tony Arnold. Currently she studies for PhD degree in Addiction Neuroscience (Major) at Indiana University Purdue University in Indianapolis (since 2020).
Colleen Hancock has appeared in opera and musical theater roles with the Bucknell and Peabody Opera Theatres and Opera Steamboat. She has notably appeared as Julie Jordan in Carousel, Geraldine in A Hand of Bridge, the Second Knitter in A Game of Chance, and Dot in Jonathon Dove’s The Enchanted Pig. With the Bucknell Opera Theatre, Ms. McGonigle participated in the workshop and premier of two new operas, Ghosts of Monticello by Garrett Fisher and Cajuum Jaa Amajiis by composition student Christian Humcke. She had the opportunity to work with guest musical directors, including Christopher Para, Richard Masters, and Jennifer Peterson, and with artists brought to Bucknell University under an Emerging Artists initiative, including Brian Mextorf. As a Young Artist with Opera Steamboat, she worked under the direction of Opera Colorado’s Cherity Knoepke and the batons of Andres Cladera and Parisa Zaeri. She made her debut this season with the Peabody Opera Theatre in L’Elisir d’Amore under the direction of Samuel Mungo and baton of Leonardo Vordoni.
As well as appearing in staged productions, Colleen Hancock's solo career has featured a number of concerts. With the Bucknell Opera Theatre, she performed in two concerts organized and coached by guest artists, Misty Ann Sturm and Amanda Johnston. The Bucknell Opera Theatre also presented two performances for the local River Woods Retirement Community and a lecture recital on “The History of Musical Theater” through the Bucknell Institute for Lifelong Learning. She has performed scenes from Lakmé, W.A. Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Fledermaus, and Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story in collaboration with the Bucknell Orchestra and under student direction. She prepared cenes from West Side Story and Trouble in Tahiti for Bernstein Scenes concert with the Peabody Opera Theatre in 2018. In 2019, she was a Street Singer in a production of L. Bernstein's's Mass under the musical direction of Marin Alsop. She epresented Bucknell University in the finalist round of the National Opera Association National Collegiate Musical Theater Scene Finals in Indianapolis and presented “Say it Somehow” from The Light in the Piazza. She performed Benjamin Britten's Phaedra for the Sylvia L. Green Voice Competition at Peabody Conservatory.
While passionate about the solo performance arena, Colleen Hancock is also an accomplished choral singer, and considers this to be an environment in which music has a particularly strong ability to bring people together and foster communication through art. She has performed with the Bucknell University Choirs, the Deer Creek Chorale, and the Baltimore Choral Arts Society. While with the Bucknell University Choirs, she performed Anthracite Fields with the Bang on a Can All-Stars as part of a year-long series, Coal Collections: Local, National, and International Stories. She also performed in the inaugural years of the Bach @ Bucknell Festival, celebrating Baroque and contemporary repertoires with guest orchestra, and soloists, faculty and guest artist recitals, and crossdepartmental lectures and discussions. She toured internationally with the Bucknell University Choirs, featuring choral collaborations in Belgrade, Serbia with Collegium Musicum and in Sofia, Bulgaria with Cantus Firmus. The Deer Creek Chorale is an intergenerational community chorus with the compelling mission of providing opportunity for choral artistry, community service, and personal enrichment. In 2019, with the Deer Creek Chorale she performed Dan Forrest’s Requiem for the Living in Carnegie Hall and under the direction of Z. Randall Stroope and will donate proceeds to Pennies for Peace. The Baltimore Choral Arts Society is one of Maryland’s premier choral ensembles and in 2019 featured performances with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under conductor Jack Everly, a community sing-along of George Frideric Handel's Messiah, and a performance of L.v. Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 with the Peabody Youth Orchestra.
When she isn’t on stage or in a practice room, Colleen McGonigle may be found in a research laboratory or with her nose buried in neuroscience literature. Working under Judy Grisel at Bucknell University, she conducted a series of studies on a mouse-model for alcoholism. Ms. McGonigle is a published author in this field; her article, “β-endorphin regulates alcohol consumption induced by exercise restriction in female mice” was published in 2016 in Alcohol. She also wrote a comprehensive honors thesis of her undergraduate research entitled “Neuroendocrine implications for coping and alcohol consumption in response to exercise restriction.” Ms. McGonigle has presented this body of research domestically at the Research Society on Alcoholism annual conference, the Society for Neuroscience convention, and the Pioneers in Endocrinology Workshop at Rutgers University. She has also presented internationally at the International Congress on Alcoholism and Stress in Volterra, Italy. Colleen McGonigle plans to continue her neuroscience work alongside her musical career in the future, as the two fields inform and provide vitality to one another.
Colleen Hancock believes that the power of music lies in its ability to tolerate differences and create connections between people to foster honest dialogue. She values the collaboration process in music and seeks to encourage communication between artists and their community
Currently based in Indianapolis, Colleen hancock is a member of Indianapolis Symphonic Choir (Director: Eric Stark) and the Indianapolis-based professional choral ensemble Sphere Born (since 2025; Director: Simon Thomas Jacobs). |
