10/06/2026
Alum of the year..
A native Mississippian, soprano Elizabeth Blanton Momand is Professor of Music at the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith, where she teaches voice, voice-related subjects, and music education courses and directs the Opera & Musical Theatre Workshop. Over a teaching career spanning thirty-seven years, she has worked with generations of young musicians as a performer, teacher, scholar, and mentor, and her students have earned state, regional, national, and international recognition in competitions and scholarship programs. She earned both her Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in Vocal Performance from Mississippi College
before completing the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Vocal Performance at The University of Texas at Austin. As a performer, Momand has appeared as soprano soloist in more than a dozen major works with orchestra, including Handel's Messiah, Haydn's The Creation, Bach's B Minor Mass and Magnificat, Mozart's Requiem and Mass in C Minor, and Orff's Carmina Burana.
Momand has presented more than 50 peer-reviewed lecture recitals, research papers, performances, and original compositions at state, regional, national, and international conferences of professional organizations including the College Music Society, the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the International Trombone Festival, the International Hispanic Heritage Festival, the International Alliance for Women in Music, the Music by
Women Festival, and the Association for Technology in Music Instruction. Her scholarly and creative work explores the music of historical women composers, composition, music education,
and, more recently, the use of artificial intelligence in teaching and learning. Throughout her career, Momand has held state, regional, and national leadership positions in professional organizations, including the National Association of Teachers of Singing, the
College Music Society, the International Alliance for Women in Music, and the Association for Technology in Music Instruction. She also serves as a visiting accreditor for the National Association of Schools of Music. At UAFS, she served as chair of the Department of Music and has held significant leadership roles in university governance, including chair of the University
Promotions Committee. While at Mississippi College, Momand was awarded an exchange scholarship for a year of study
at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, an event that she credits with changing the course of her life. Momand has also been awarded a fellowship for research and travel in former East Germany; a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship for research and travel in India; the UAFS Lucille Speakman Master Teacher Award; the UAFS Speakman Fellowship for Research in Teaching; and a 2026 award from the UAFS Center for Teaching and Learning recognizing her
research and scholarship on artificial intelligence in teaching.
Beyond the art and technique of singing, Momand is deeply committed to teaching the whole student, guiding them to become thoughtful, generous people as well as skilled musicians. At the
end of every class, she challenges them to “go forth and conquer the world with love and kindness, because we need a lot more of it in the world,” a send-off her students have adopted as
their own, reciting the words with her often before she can say them herself.
