Christopher Arneson

Assistant Professor II

• 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, Repertoire 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.  The Netherlands Opera cast him to perform the role of Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte. He sang the role of Pallante in the American stage premiere of Handel's Agrippina.  With the Cincinnati Opera, he performed leading roles in such diverse productions as Il barbiere di Siviglia, Hansel and Gretel, Madama Butterfly, and La fanciulla del west. He also appeared in the world premiere performances and tour of Nixon in China by John Adams. 

Dr. Arneson has appeared with the Opera Orchestra of New York in works by Donizetti and Boildieu, and as Figaro in the Metropolitan Opera Guild's production of The Barber of Seville.  He was engaged by the New York Philharmonic for concert performances of Strauss’ Zigeunerbaron with conductor Kurt Masur.

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. In 2008 he will lecture at the Kennedy Center Festival, and at the New York Singing Teacher Association’s Comparative Pedagogy Seminar. He will also moderate at Westminster Choir College’s acclaimed Master Teachers Seminar.   Dr. Arneson has also been a guest lecturer for the National Association of Music Education and the American Choral Directors Association. 

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.  He recently joined the editorial board of The Journal of Singing and is an external reviewer for Unbridled Books.