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Leigh Holman, director of CU Boulder’s Eklund Opera program, has been named the new commencement marshal.

Holman, a CU Boulder alumna who has been with the university for 15 years, replaces Bud Coleman who has led the spring commencement ceremony since 2018.

“On behalf of our entire college, we're proud of Leigh Holman assuming the role of the university's next commencement marshal,” said College of Music Dean John Davis, also noting Holman's transformative role as director of the college's highly regarded Eklund Opera Program and New Opera Workshop (CU NOW).

"Leigh's work advances our mission to develop multiskilled, multifaceted universal musicians with flexible career options, thereby also amplifying momentum toward more interdisciplinary collaborations across our campus. In that spirit, as commencement marshal, Leigh perfectly represents not only the College of Music, but also our increasingly interconnected campus community.”

The role of commencement marshal is mostly behind the scenes, until the day of the ceremony when Holman will be front and center on stage before thousands of graduates and their guests. It’s a role she relishes and is excited to take on.

“As a performer, I feel comfortable being on stage. And part of the job of being commencement marshal is emceeing the event, so I feel very comfortable in that role,” she said.

“The main thing I’m excited about is being a part of this special day for our students, a day that hopefully they’ll never forget.”

Holman took some time to talk with CU Boulder Today about herself, her time at CU Boulder and her new role as commencement marshal.

Director, Eklund Opera Program

I am the director of opera for the College of Music, and that means I’m the director of the program administratively, but I’m also the resident stage director. I am in charge of working with my team to cast shows, choose the operas we will be performing and, more importantly, I come up with the vision for the show…what it’s going to look like, what it’s going to feel like and what the characters will be like.

So I’m really a storyteller, and I use acting and visual elements on stage to tell that story. That’s what a stage director does, and that’s my role here at CU.

New Opera Workshop

In the summer we have a program that I started called the New Opera Workshop (CU NOW). It’s a really exciting program where we bring in opera composers who are working on new projects and pair them with our wonderfully talented students who then bring the opera’s characters and the music to life. So the composers get to work on their project in a beautiful setting here in Boulder, and our students get the opportunity to work with some of the most renowned creators of opera in the world.

Road to CU Boulder

My grandparents went to CU Boulder in the 1920s. After graduating—my grandmother graduated too, which was almost unheard of back then—they moved to Tennessee. When I was growing up, we lived in Tennessee but my grandparents had moved back to Colorado, so we went to visit them every summer.

After completing my undergraduate and graduate degrees and working for a while, I decided that I wanted to teach voice and direct operas. I had a few schools on my list, and CU was one of them. So, in my 30s I went back to school and got my doctorate. After teaching at the college level for a few years and working with Opera Colorado, I came to work at CU Boulder. I feel very lucky to have my dream job. It’s pretty awesome to be a teacher where my grandparents went to college.

Passion for singing and opera

I’ve been a singer since birth. I think the first time I ever sang in public I was 4 years old, and I sang the song “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head.” I’ll never forget it. I was a voice major in college where I studied classical music. I am a mezzo soprano, which is fun because it is one of the lower soprano voices, so you get cast in roles such as witches. So I sang, went to college to study voice and started doing opera. And then after college, I did opera professionally.

People would be surprised to know…

I think people would be surprised that I ride a motorcycle. One other thing…When I was in high school I was a Congressional page in Washington, D.C. I was from this little rural town in Tennessee, and I was asked by my Congressman to come to D.C. to be a page. I served during the end of the Carter administration.