Blair Boone-Migura is a voice teacher, vocal coach, classical musician, arts leader, former public radio host, and founder/executive director of The Art Song Preservation Society of New York. His work brings together vocal pedagogy, language study, piano collaboration, cultural history, and decades of experience in arts education, performance, and administration.

A specialist in art song performance, interpretation, and vocal literature, Blair teaches with a particular focus on healthy vocal function, expressive communication, linguistic precision, style, and the deep relationship between text and music. His background in French language, literature, and culture, together with his long study of French mélodie and German Lieder, informs his work with singers seeking greater technical freedom, musical specificity, and interpretive depth.

Within the field of French mélodie, Blair has developed particular expertise in the music of Henri Duparc, the enigmatic composer whose small but extraordinary song output has long occupied a central place in his scholarly, pedagogical, and performance work. He has authored two theses on Duparc and has presented lecture-recitals, workshops, and masterclasses devoted to the composer’s repertoire, with special attention to text, prosody, harmonic atmosphere, vocal line, the singer-pianist relationship, and the orchestration of Duparc’s mélodies.

Blair is a guest lecturer in the Music Department at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where he teaches French and German song literature and private voice. He has also taught courses in vocal pedagogy, coached opera workshop, and given masterclasses in French song. In New York, he has served as an adjunct faculty member at The New School, Hunter College, and Queensborough College. He has also been invited as a guest lecturer in French vocal literature at Florida State University’s College of Music and has appeared as a livestream presenter and mentor on the Tonebase Voice platform, where he works with singers on art song repertoire, audition preparation, and vocal technique.

In 2010, Blair founded The Art Song Preservation Society of New York, a nonprofit arts organization dedicated to revitalizing the art song tradition through education and performance. As executive director, he created the organization’s annual Summer of Song Festival, hosted by Manhattan School of Music, which presents masterclasses, workshops, and recitals devoted to the study and performance of art song. Blair founded ASPSNY in honor of his longtime mentor Mary Trueman, a master specialist in French and German song with whom he studied for twenty-two years.

Blair’s work in French song is rooted in a rare and deeply meaningful artistic lineage. He counts Mary Trueman, Dalton Baldwin, and Thomas Grubb among his most important mentors — three extraordinary artists, teachers, and specialists whose knowledge, passion, and advocacy for French mélodie profoundly shaped the field. His close personal and artistic connection to all three has deeply informed his own teaching, coaching, and advocacy for art song. Blair studied with Mary Trueman for twenty-two years, worked closely with Dalton Baldwin and Thomas Grubb, and had the honor of speaking at the memorial services for Dalton Baldwin and he organized and spoke at the memorial service for Tom Grubb. This lineage continues to guide his commitment to preserving and transmitting the nuance, poetry, language, style, and expressive depth of French song.

Blair’s broader musical formation includes a Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance, awarded with honors, and a Master of Arts in French Language, Literature, and Culture from Syracuse University. He also studied voice and piano at the Strasbourg Conservatory of Music in Strasbourg, France, and holds a second master’s degree in Vocal Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College, where he graduated with honors and distinction. His principal voice teacher was Mary Trueman. He also studied piano accompaniment and collaborative playing with Mary Trueman and Steve Heyman, and continues his piano studies privately in New York City with Edward Nemirovsky and Nathaniel LaNasa.

His ongoing piano study and work with distinguished pianists like pedagogue Graham Fitch and concert and collaborative pianist Mark Markham deeply inform his approach to coaching singers, especially in matters of phrasing, harmonic awareness, partnership, timing, breath, and the singer-pianist relationship. This perspective allows him to approach song not only from the standpoint of vocal technique and text, but also from the architecture of the piano part and the collaborative dialogue between singer and pianist.

Blair’s teaching also incorporates practice strategies, performance preparation, and memorization techniques informed by his study with Dr. Molly Gebrian, author of Learn Faster, Perform Better: A Musician’s Guide to the Neuroscience of Practicing. Drawing on research-based approaches to learning, memory, skill acquisition, and performance psychology, he helps singers as well as pianists practice more efficiently, retain repertoire more securely, and develop tools for reducing performance anxiety. This work allows him to support singers not only in how they sing, but in how they learn, prepare, remember, and perform under pressure.

Beyond the studio, Blair has worked as a public radio host, music and film journalist, interviewer, and cultural commentator. He co-hosted Singing & Other Sins on Hawaiʻi Public Radio/NPR-Hawaiʻi, where he presented programs and interviews devoted to singers, pianists, composers, and the art song tradition. His published writing includes reviews, profiles, interviews with prominent artist, and the essay “Bridging Cultural Divides in Classical Music Interpretation,” written for the album William Grant Still: American Art Song.

Blair first became known to national audiences as the original “culture maven” on Bravo’s groundbreaking series Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, a role that reflected his long-standing interest in culture, communication, style, identity, and the ways the arts shape human connection. That broader cultural perspective continues to inform his work as a teacher, advocate, and communicator, especially in helping audiences and artists understand art song as a living, human, and culturally meaningful form.

Blair’s philosophy is that singing is both a physical and interpretive art. Whether working on art song, audition repertoire, classical technique, musical theater, the Great American Songbook, or language-based interpretation, he helps singers develop the tools to communicate with greater freedom, intelligence, authenticity, and emotional specificity. Through his work as an educator, coach, arts leader, and founder of ASPSNY, Blair has devoted his career to preserving the art song tradition while making it accessible, relevant, and alive for new generations of artists and listeners.

Blair has adjudicated numerous vocal competitions, including NATS vocal competitions, the Mary Trueman Art Song Vocal Competition, and the Duncan Williams Vocal Competition song division. He has also served in arts leadership roles with the International Vocal Arts Institute, was on the Board of Directors and served as President of Alliance Française Hawaii, and collaborated with French and American cultural organizations on major arts festivals in New York.

Blair’s teaching is rooted in the belief that singing is both a physical and interpretive art. His studio work encourages singers to cultivate vocal clarity, technical confidence, linguistic precision, stylistic understanding, efficient practice habits, and a personal connection to text. Whether working on art song, audition repertoire, classical technique, musical theater, the Great American Songbook, or language-based interpretation, Blair helps singers develop the tools to communicate with greater freedom, intelligence, authenticity, and emotional specificity. Through his work as an educator, coach, arts leader, and founder of ASPSNY, he has devoted his career to preserving the art song tradition while making it accessible, relevant, and alive for new generations of artists and listeners.