Sarah Arneson and Anne Hooper Webb: World Renowned Soprano and Violinist

Coloratura soprano Sarah Arneson debuted as Olympia at the Vienna State Opera, where she sang many coloratura roles, including the Queen of the Night. She has been a frequent soloist in the opera houses of Berlin, Cologne, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Munich, and Stuttgart, with the leading roles of Gilda, Konstanze, Marie, Musetta, Olympia, Queen of the Night, Rosina, Titania, Violetta, and Zerbinetta. International appearances included the Boston and Detroit Operas, as well as the opera festivals of Cuenco (Spain) and Istanbul (Turkey). She has performed with such renowned conductors as Karl Böhm, Dennis Russel Davies, Lukas Foss, Michael Gielen, Jiri Kout, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, and Christian Thielemann; as well as such notable stage directors as Ruth Berghaus, Jochaim Herz, and Jean Pierre Ponelle. Dr. Arneson was the coloratura soloist in the world premiere of Pulitzer Prize winner William Bolcom’s Songs of Innocence and Experience. She has made solo appearances with orchestra (including the Brooklyn Philharmonic and Chicago Grant Park Symphony), and television and radio (including PBS, WNYC, and ORF). Dr. Arneson is a frequent collaborator in recitals, lectures, and master classes with pianist George Kern of the”Mozarteum”, Salzburg (including Cyprus and China, under the auspices of the USIS and the American Liszt Society, as well as the Toho Music School in Japan). She founded an award-winning chamber opera program for young singers with stage director, Marc Andre Angelini (Komische, Kammeroper München). Her students have won prizes in international competitions, participated in opera apprentice programs (Sarasota, Opera North, and St. Louis), and appeared as soloists in both European and American opera houses, and winners of the Domingo Competition, the San Francisco Adler program, and the Paris Flamme Competition. Dr. Arneson won the Detroit Grinnel Opera Competition and studied on a Fulbright in Paris with Pierre Bernac. Her teachers were Chase Baromeo, Lucile Evans, Hilde Gueden, Eva Likova, Naomi Perugia, and John Zei. Dr. Arneson became a tenured faculty member of the “Mozarteum”, Salzburg, in 1995. She taught at the University of Illinois, the University of Miami’s Summer program in Salzburg, as well as Boston University, where she was head of the voice department. Dr. Arneson has held guest professorships at the Toho Music School in Japan; and, most recently has been invited for a guest professorship, at Antiquoia University in Colombia, South America. Dr Arneson has been invited for master classes at the University of Mexico and the University of South Florida in Tampa. She has music degrees from the University of Nebraska (BME); Western Michigan University (MM); and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (MLS and DMA).

Ruth Moore is an emeriti professor of music from Hastings College, where she was coordinator of keyboard, piano pedagogy, and accompanying. She earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Education and Piano Performance from Hastings College and a Master of Music degree in Piano Pedagogy from Southern Methodist University. In 1997, Moore received the prestigious Hastings College Faculty Achievement Award for Outstanding Teaching; she was named the recipient of the Nebraska Music Teachers Association's Service Award in 2002, and she was the first recipient of the Outstanding Alumni in Music during the Hastings College Fine Arts Hall of Fame ceremony in 2019. She is currently a pianist for Grand Island Public Schools, organist at First Presbyterian Church in Grand Island, and is a collaborative artist for many recitals and events in the surrounding area. 

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