Ronald Witzke, D.M.A.

Dr. Ron Witzke has been a member of the voice faculty at William Jewell College since 1984, where he maintains an active performance schedule while balancing his administrative and teaching responsibilities. His operatic successes include roles in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Richard Strauss’s Salome, Verdi’s Rigoletto and Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette with the Lyric Opera of Kansas City under the baton of Maestro Ward Holmquist. In February 2015, he performed with the Lyric in the company’s premier of Silent Night, the Pulitzer Prize winning opera written by Kevin Puts and Mark Campbell.

His oratorio solo work includes Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and Brahms’ Requiem with the Northland Philharmonia Orchestra together with the Kansas City Symphony Chorus; Handel’s Messiah with the Kansas City Symphony and Chorus; and Bruckner’s Te Deum and Carmina Burana with the Quincy Symphony Orchestra. His chamber performance credits include performances with the Bowling Green (Kentucky) Chamber Orchestra, singing Mahler’s Lieder eines farhenden Gesellen. Witzke has soloed frequently with the Truman State University Symphony and Choir in Haydn’s Creation, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Orff’s Carmina Burana, and most recently in Mozart’s Requiem. Witzke can be heard as soloist on the recently released The Trumpet Sounds – a Naxos recording of Anthony Maglione’s cantata for double choir, organ, trumpet and soloists, based on the poetry of Walt Whitman, entitled The Mystic Trumpeter.

In 2020, Dr. Witzke received Jewell's Carl F. Willard Distinguished Teacher honor.