Miriam Charney

College Faculty:

Vocal Arts: Related Studies: Performance Techniques, Vocal Literature
Opera Theatre: Vocal Coaching

Miriam Charney has been an assistant conductor/pianist at many of the major festivals and regional opera companies in the U.S., including Glimmerglass Opera, Chautauqua Opera, the Banff Festival (Canada), Opera Company of Philadelphia, Florida Grand Opera, New Orleans Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, and Connecticut Opera. She was assistant conductor to Gerard Schwarz and Leopold Hager for the Mostly Mozart Festival, as well as functioning as casting consultant and playing continuo in performance. She has performed with Lauren Flanigan, André Solomon-Glover, Paul Groves, Brenda Harris, Mark Gould, Pamela South, and Jacque Trussel and participated in master classes given by Marilyn Horne, Renata Scotto, Marlena Malas, and Stephen Wadsworth. A life-long champion of contemporary opera, she prepared premieres by Lee Hoiby, William Schuman, Jacob Druckman, Thea Musgrave, Tobias Picker, and Ricky Ian Gordon, as well as preparing and performing workshops of new works by Viviane Fine, Janice Hamer, and Susan Botti for American Opera Projects. As music director in theater, Ms. Charney toured India with The Wooster Group and was instrumental in the development of new music-theater pieces with Elizabeth LeCompte and the late Spalding Gray. She toured Europe with Elizabeth Swados’ company and music-directed for NYU’s Experimental Theatre Wing. She has performed in venues ranging from Alice Tully Hall to Le Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels to the Amphitheatre at the Chautauqua Institution.

Ms. Charney received a National Opera Institute grant and is a former president of the National Association of Accompanists and Coaches. She has been on the faculties of Juilliard, the University of Connecticut, and Goddard College, and was Head Coach at the Hartt School of Music for 13 years. Currently, she is Adjunct Artist in Music at Vassar College, directing the Opera Workshop with renowned counter-tenor Drew Minter, and is a member of the piano faculty. Since 1996 Ms. Charney has been a faculty member in the Music History and Voice departments at Manhattan School of Music, where she also created and directs the Contemporary Opera Ensemble. She was the official pianist for the Elardo International Opera Competition, before its recent move to Brussels. Ms. Charney received her BA in Music with honors from Brandeis University, completing further study at Wesleyan University, Columbia University, and the Dalcroze School of Music. Her teachers have included Dorothy Taubman, Edna Golandsky, Kyriena Siloti, and Martin Canon for piano; Kenneth Cooper and Paul Echols for harpsichord; Joan Dornemann, Martin Isepp, and Margaret Singer for coaching and accompanying; Robert Koff for chamber music studies; and Paul Nadler, Catherine MacDonald, and James Olsen for conducting studies.

Ms. Charney maintains an active coaching studio in Manhattan where she makes her home with her husband, photographer Roger Maltby, and their son, formerly a child soloist with New York City Opera, now a recent graduate of Williams College.