Christopher Arneson

Associate Professor

• Email Address: carneson@rider.edu
• Phone: (609) 921-7100, ext. 8269
• Office: Erdman Hall 31
• Mailing Address: 101 Walnut Lane, Princeton, NJ 08540

Christopher Arneson is a professional voice trainer and vocologist who works with singers, actors, politicians and public speakers to build powerful, effective voices. In 2003 he joined the voice faculty at Westminster Choir College of Rider University where he teaches Voice, Vocal Pedagogy, Song Literature, Literature for Teaching, and Speech for the Singing Actor.  Dr. Arneson’s students have gone on to further study in the Master of Music, Artist Diploma, and Doctoral programs at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Boston University, Ithaca College, Eastman School of Music, Indiana University and Yale School of Music.  They have also appeared in young artist programs at Chautauqua Opera, Central City Opera, Santa Fe Opera, and Washington National Opera.  His professional-level students have appeared at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, and Lyric Opera of Chicago.  Dr. Arneson is the co-director of the CoOPERAtive Program, a young artist program for singers, held at Westminster Choir College.

Dr. Arneson's singing credits include performances with many of America's most important opera companies and orchestras, and collaborations with a number of prominent stage directors and conductors.  Highlights include Die Zigeunerbaron with the New York Philharmonic, Il barbiere di Siviglia with the Metropolitan Opera Guild and the world premiere of John Adams’ Nixon in China.

 Dr. Arneson was formerly the co-director of the Voice and Speech department in the MFA program at the renowned Actors Studio of the New School University in New York.  In addition, he taught voice and vocal pedagogy at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey.  Dr. Arneson completed vocology internships at the Grabscheid Voice Center at Mt. Sinai Hospital and the Vox Humana Laboratory at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital, both in New York, where he continues to collaborate with otolaryngologists and speech-language pathologists in the remediation of voice disorders.  Dr. Arneson is a frequent guest speaker regarding the training and care of the professional voice. He is a faculty member for the New York Singing Teachers Association’s (NYSTA) professional development program, where he teaches classes in vocal repertoire and applied pedagogy. Dr. Arneson is chair of the NATS Pedagogy Curriculum Committee and has recently published articles in the NATS Journal of Singing; Teaching Teachers and Performance Anxiety: A 21st Century Perspective.

 Dr. Arneson holds both Bachelor of Music and Master of Music in Opera degrees from Binghamton University, completed post-graduate studies at Cornell University where he studied with renowned Verdi scholar Roger Parker, and earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University where he studied Seventeenth Century Venetian Opera with Dr. Irene Alm.   Dr. Arneson is an editor for The Journal of Singing, Unbridled Books and Inside View Press.  Dr. Arneson and Dr. Julianne Baird are the 2010 nominees to the American Academy of Teachers of Singing.