Voice Instructors
Ruth Golden
Ruth Golden was a leading soprano with the New York City Opera from 1985 to 1991, and is currently director of vocal studies at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University. Under the direction of Beverly Sills, Miss Golden appeared at New York City Opera as Mimi in La bohème, Marguerite in Faust, both Pamina and First Lady in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, and a variety of operetta heroines in The Student Prince, The Mikado, and The Merry Widow. In addition to Live from Lincoln Center, Miss Golden has appeared in New York at Carnegie Hall (with the Oratorio Society of New York), Alice Tully Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Symphony Space, and Merkin Concert Hall.
Additional performances in opera and concert have taken Miss Golden to the Kennedy Center, Los Angeles Music Center, Canadian Opera, The Ravinia Festival, The Aspen Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. From 1995 to 2001, Miss Golden appeared as artist/faculty with Martin Katz and Graham Johnson at Songfest, hosted in Southern California.
Adding thirty-one of the fifty U.S. states to her itinerary, Miss Golden also appeared internationally with the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, Orchestra Pasdeloup in Paris, Chartres, and Rheims, the Prague Philharmonic in Prague, and the Orchestra Royale of Madrid in both Madrid and Lisbon. In 1997, Miss Golden appeared as artist/master teacher in concerts and master classes throughout South Korea. In recent seasons, Miss Golden has appeared in recital/master classes for the Juilliard School, Indiana University, McGill University, The Chautauqua Institution, Belmont University with Regina Resnik Presents, Hebrew Union College, and the University of California, Irvine during the John Harbison Residency. Miss Golden opened the 1999/2000 season appearing with Marilyn Horne, Martin Katz, Donald McGinnis, and Jean Barr in Los Angeles for the University of Southern California's Koldofsky Memorial Benefit Recital.
As a member of the Koch International Classics family of distinguished recording artists, Miss Golden's discography includes works of Delius, Warlock, Vaughan-Williams, Rodrigo, and Barber. Also recorded for Koch is a disc of songs by Erich Korngold with Dalton Baldwin, pianist.
Miss Golden's students have gone on to study and perform at Minnesota Opera, Sarasota Opera, Music Academy of the West, Chautauqua Institution, Manhattan School of Music, Opera Institute at Boston University, New England Conservatory of Music, Lake Placid Summer Vocal Institute, and Utah Festival Opera, among others. In addition to appearing as guest artist/master teacher, Miss Golden remains busy as an adjudicator. During the past few seasons, she has worked with over 2,000 high school students in New York, in clinics and master classes sponsored by New York OffStage. At the request of Dalton Baldwin, Miss Golden served on the panel for the 1999 Poulenc Plus Competition, served as mistress of ceremonies for the PBS telecasts of the 1997-99 MacAllister Opera Awards, and served three seasons on the panel for the Jenny Lind Awards.
Miss Golden is an active member of the adjudicating panel for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
Bill Schuman
Internationally acclaimed American voice teacher Bill Schuman is a native of Portland, Oregon. He began his voice studies with B. Gibner King, the noted coach of Ezio Pinza and Margaret Harshaw among others. While attending Brigham Young University he studied with Madame Margaret Woodward, a protégéé of Amelita Galli-Curci. After graduation from BYU, Mr. Schuman continued his studies with Rita Streich at the Conservatory of Music in Vienna. He then moved to Los Angeles where he began an intensive apprenticeship with the famed vocal pedagogue, Luisa Franceschi, who was a protégéé of Luisa Tetrazzini and Pietro Mascagni. Mr. Schuman then established his studio in New York City and in the few years since, many of his students have been heard in the world's greatest opera houses, Broadway and West End theaters, motion pictures, and countless operatic and musical theater recordings. In 1998, Mr. Schuman was honored by Opera News when they selected him to be the subject of their first interview for their new column, "Voice Talk." He has been a member of the voice faculty of AVA since 1987, and has given master classes throughout the United States and Europe.
William Stone, visiting artist
Baritone William Stone has sung extensively in the major opera houses of Europe and especially in Italy, having twice opened the May Festival in Florence as Wozzeck and as Orestes, in Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride under Riccardo Muti. His creation of the role of Adam for the Lyric Opera of Chicago's world premiere of Penderecki's Paradise Lost, was followed by his debut at La Scala in its European premiere and a performance at the Vatican for Pope John Paul II. With Sir Georg Solti, he toured with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in the role of the Count in Le nozze di Figaro.
His North American opera engagements include the Metropolitan Opera (Moses und Aron, Wozzeck, La traviata, Sly, Die Fledermaus, Romeo et Juliette, Lucia, Madama Butterfly), and title roles for over a decade at the New York City Opera, notably as the Count in Le nozze di Figaro in a Live from Lincoln Center telecast and the title role in new productions of Hindemith's Mathis der Maler, and Busoni's Doktor Faust.
As a concert artist, Stone has appeared with every major orchestra in the country, including the New York Philharmonic under Kurt Masur and the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Seiji Ozawa conducting the premieres of Takemitsu's My Way of Life, and Kirchner's Of Things Exactly as They Are. His long relationship with Robert Shaw resulted in acclaimed performances of the monumental choral works and over a dozen recordings, including the two Grammy Award recordings of Hindemith's When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, and Walton's, Belshazaar's Feast, and an Historic Live Performance Edition of Ein Deutches Requiem with the Cleveland Orchestra . Other recordings include The Songs and Arias of Robert Ward, and DVDs of Carnegie Hall's Performance Series of Hindemith's When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd, and Verdi's Falstaff with Jose van Dam.
Equally at home on the recital stage, Stone considers his many performances of Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch with Benita Valente and David Golub among the most memorable. In addition to his performing career, Mr. Stone currently serves as a Professor of Voice and Opera with the Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University in Philadelphia. He joins the AVA faculty in September, 2009.
