Miriam Charney enjoys a varied career as an opera coach, music director, recital collaborator, and teacher. She has been an assistant conductor/pianist at many of the major festivals and regional opera companies in the U.S., including Glimmerglass, Chautauqua, Opera Philadelphia, Florida Grand, and New Orleans, as well as the Banff Festival in Canada. Other credits include assistant conductor to Gerard Schwarz and Leopold Hager for the Mostly Mozart Festival and recital performances with Lauren Flanigan, Elizabeth Bishop, and Paul Groves, among others. A lifelong champion of contemporary opera, she has prepared premieres by such diverse composers as Lee Hoiby, Ricky Ian Gordon, and Tobias Picker, as well as performing many new works for American Opera Projects, including coaching their most recent collaboration with the NYU-Tisch Opera Lab. She toured India with the Wooster Group, developed music-theater pieces with Elizabeth LeCompte and Spalding Gray, and music-directed for Elizabeth Swados and NYU’s Experimental Theatre Wing. The recipient of a National Opera Institute grant, Ms. Charney has served on the faculties of Juilliard, the Hartt School, and the University of Connecticut. She is currently Artist Faculty at Vassar, co-directing the Opera Workshop, teaching collaborative piano, and advising in music theater. She has been a member of the Manhattan School of Music faculty since 1996, where she developed and directs the MSM Contemporary Opera Ensemble, teaches in the Vocal Arts and Piano departments, and has also served as Chorus Master for MSM Opera Theatre.  Ms. Charney has been on the music staff of Chautauqua Opera since 1995 as coach and pianist.