Professor, Music Department
 Music is the constant in the life of Richard Sutliff. From listening to jazz and strumming on his guitar in his spare time to delivering a stirring vocal performance on the stage at the Houston Grand Opera, the life of Richard Sutliff is all about music. It always has been.
Born and raised in Fullerton, California, Richard studied with the famous French baritone Martial Singher prior to being selected for the prestigious Opera Center for American Artists at Lyric Opera of Chicago. It was there that he made his operatic debut as Morales in Carmen. While in Chicago, he became a Christian and had a strong desire to finish his bachelor's degree at a Christian College. He came to ORU in 1976 and completed his degree.
Over the next decade or so, Richard was a full-time performing baritone and an adjunct professor at ORU. In 1995, upon completion of his masters at the University of Tulsa, he became a full-time ORU professor.
Tulsa has seen Richard in a variety of productions including as Marcello in La Boheme, High Priest in Samson and Delilah and Germont in La Traviata. He has also performed regularly at the Houston Grand Opera, taking roles in the past couple of years in Billy Budd and La Boheme. In all, over the past 25 years, Richard has made over 800 performances in 60 leading and supporting roles.
He finds that he will go through a period of heavy performance and then have a season of directing and conducting. Recently, he conducted the ORU Opera Theater in their performance of Gianni Schicchi by Puccini. In March 2009, he conducted his students in their presentation of the musical 110 in the Shade.
In addition to the music that is so much a part of his life, Richard enjoys traveling and has performed in Japan, Korea, France, Switzerland, Belgium, England and throughout the United States.
The press has described Richard's voice as "a ringing beauty" and "a big heavy cream baritone." On the ORU campus he is known as the professor who is able to speak to vocal performance students from the perspective of a fellow performer. His legacy is on the stage and in the lives of the hundreds of students he has touched with his insightful instruction and talent.
B.M. from ORU
M.M. from University of Tulsa
Contact information: rsutliff@oru.edu 918.495.7515
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