Vanessa El-Zein Lai, B.A.

Vanessa El-Zein Lai is a vocal coach and music director across a variety of styles and age groups. With years of experience in musical theatre, she is a specialist in audition prep and vocal performance for the stage.

Vanessa is an active resident of Dearborn’s music and musical theatre scene. She has performed for Mayor Abdullah Hammoud’s inauguration, the Dearborn Tree Lighting Ceremony, The Walk (Little Amal), the State of the City address, and a variety of other events. She has collaborated with the Dearborn Symphony, Arab American National Museum, and Syrian opera singer Lubana Al-Quntar.

As a music director, Vanessa has worked throughout Southeast Michigan on over forty productions including Chicago, Next to Normal, Dear Evan Hansen, The Wizard of Oz, SIX: The Musical, Anastasia, Hadestown, Into the Woods, Legally Blonde, Urinetown, West Side Story, & Little Shop of Horrors.

Vanessa is the music director and conductor of Dearborn Youth Voices, music director for Dearborn Civic Theatre, and maintains a private voice studio where she teaches a wide range of styles including classical, jazz, rock, hip-hop, and opera, with a large focus on music for theatre.

At Henry Ford College, she has music directed productions including Freddy, Mabel and the Pirate King, and directed and music directed Torn Apart, Together: A Musical Theatre Showcase. She teaches THEA-148: Singing for the Stage--a course she designed to teach vocal techniques for a variety of musical theatre genres.