Vocal powerhouse
Vocal powerhouse
Making music is all in the family for opera singer Andrea Wells ’00.
Operatic soprano Andrea Chenoweth Wells ’00 has thrilled audiences from Cleveland to Carnegie Hall with her lush, powerhouse vocals.
But her family — a musical dynasty to rival the von Trapps — served as her first audience.
Andrea Chenoweth Wells ’00
Her father, University of Dayton professor emeritus Richard Chenoweth, remembers driving back from visiting the grandparents in Philadelphia: “Andrea and her sister Erica and her brother Chris had watched
The Sound of Music on one trip, and they sang the entire score on the way home.”
Wells’ mother, Marianne Chenoweth, is a flute player who hails from a celebrated musical family. Her father, Alan Abel, a music professor and percussionist for the Philadelphia Orchestra, died last year at 91 from COVID-19. Her uncle, Bruce Abel, was a widely recorded singer of German lieder songs.