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After a three-year hiatus, voice professor Barbara Hill Moore returned this summer to South Africa’s Nelson Mandela Bay University to teach and inspire a new generation of vocalists. Students received individual coaching, the option to take relevant classes in culture and human rights and participate in a production of Oklahoma!  

Hill Moore first traveled to South Africa in 2000 only a few years after the country’s overturning of the oppressive apartheid system. She began teaching at a variety of institutions including public schools, universities, churches, and one-on-one coaching. After a decade of summer trips to South Africa, Hill Moore founded the SMU in South Africa study abroad program in 2011. 

This summer Hill Moore took fourteen students and seven faculty to Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, for a five-week residency. In collaboration with almost thirty NMU students the two factions put learned and collaborated with each other, culminating in a rousing performance of Oklahoma!

I think my favorite moment was either the safari we took or our four productions of Oklahoma! Both experiences helped me bond with my fellow students! This trip will be one of my favorite SMU experiences!

-Melanie Jackson '26, Journalism and Marketing double major

Oklahoma!, Opening song