About Shannon Malakai
Shannon Malakai (Prickett) is a dedicated voice teacher and soprano with nearly twelve years of experience helping students develop healthy, confident, and expressive singing voices. Drawing from her extensive background in opera and classical performance, she brings real-world experience to her teaching, having performed with companies such as Minnesota Opera and Des Moines Metro Opera in roles including Micaëla in Carmen, the Foreign Princess in Rusalka, and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. Shannon also appeared as a soprano soloist in Carmina Burana with the Mankato Symphony and Verdi’s Requiem with both the Wayzata Symphony Orchestra and the University of Wisconsin Symphony. Her teaching focuses on guiding each student through the principles of bel canto technique— emphasizing breath, open-throated singing, and emotional connection to the music-while nurturing musical literacy, diction in Italian, French, and German, and the artistry needed for expressive performance.
Passionate about developing not only technical skill but also confidence and mental resilience, Shannon has taught privately and at institutions including the Academy of Sound in Wisconsin and Corvid Academy Performing Arts in Hawaii. She holds a Master of Music in Opera Performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she studied under Julia Faulkner and Bill Farlow.
