Bern is a Brooklyn-based performer and teacher. As an actor, vocalist and instrumentalist, he has performed on three continents (Europe, North America, and Asia) in large cities across the US. He enjoys moving between genres, spanning rock, pop, jazz, folk, barbershop, cabaret, musical theatre, opera and oratorio.
He holds a Masters of Music in Vocal Performance (NYU), an Advanced Certificate in Vocal Pedagogy (NYU), a Post-Graduate Diploma in Education (National Institute of Education Singapore), and a Bachelor of Arts (University of Chicago).
Bern loves to teach. In voice teaching, his students include professional singers in R&B, pop/rock, alternative/indie, folk, jazz, blues, barbershop, musical theatre, and classical music. He is experienced in working with trans voices, voices recovering from pathology, non-native speakers of English, and singers with visual or hearing impairment. He encourages each student not to replicate a pre-conceived sound, but to find their own, authentic free sound. He believes great skill and facility should be carefully groomed to accomplish tasks and requirements of each genre at hand.
In addition to teaching voice, Bern enjoys coaching actors in script analysis to help them mine the text for strong, interesting choices in their auditions and shows, grounding their characters’ actions in the larger contexts and conflicts of each work. In the last year, his students have booked roles on Film, TV, Broadway, National Tours, and other venues.
In academia, he is currently teaching graduate script analysis and private voice for performance majors at NYU. He was recognized at Steinhardt for Distinguished Leadership and Contribution in Vocal Pedagogy in 2020. He previously taught epistemology and writing classes in junior colleges in Singapore.
He is an active voice researcher on the Johnson Lab team at the NYU Langone Voice Center, interested in the belt voice, fatigue and recovery, and dosimetry. Ongoing research includes the 2022 PAVA presentation on a Belting Scoping Review and Mobile Voice Dosimetry work in collaboration with Langone Voice Center and Tandon Venture Studio.