Department of Music

Kim Fuller-Barnes

Kim teaches Private Applied Jazz Voice at SIUE, where she has served as a lecturer since fall 2023. An established jazz vocalist with more than three decades of professional performance, Kim has been a fixture of the St. Louis metropolitan music scene since 1980, appearing in clubs, concert halls, and arts centers throughout the region. She has shared the stage with nationally recognized artists including Smokey Robinson, Pieces of a Dream, and Ramsey Lewis, and has performed as a headline and featured artist at venues such as the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center and Jazz St. Louis. As a lead artist, she has anchored thematic and tribute concerts, including programs centered on Nancy Wilson and other foundational jazz vocal stylists.

In the studio, Kim provides applied lessons, stylistic coaching, repertoire development, and performance preparation for SIUE's vocal jazz students. She also leads "The Jazz Story," an educational outreach initiative associated with The Sheldon, through which she teaches jazz history and the cultural foundations of Black American Music. Kim brings a distinctive perspective to vocal pedagogy, drawing on a prior career as a speech-language pathologist. She earned her Master of Science in Speech Pathology from SIUE and spent two decades with the St. Louis Public Schools before turning to teaching voice. That background informs her instruction in healthy technique, articulation, diction, and vocal sustainability for advanced singers.