For a generation, from the stages of the world's most prestigious opera houses - New York's Metropolitan Opera, the Paris Opera, London's Covent Garden, Milan's La Scala, the Vienna State Opera and the Buenos Aires Teatro Colón - to the concert halls of Salzburg, Berlin, Rome, Paris and New York, the name of Martina Arroyo has been synonymous with music making of the highest order.
Famous for her interpretations of Verdi, Puccini, Strauss and Mozart, Ms. Arroyo has had the honor of three opening night performances at the Metropolitan Opera, two of them in consecutive seasons. At ease with contemporary music, she has premiered works of William Bolcom and Carlo Franci and was chosen to present the world premiere of Samuel Barber's Andromache's Farewell as well as Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Momente. She later recorded both pieces and performed them throughout the United States and Europe.Ms. Arroyo has made more than 50 recordings of major operas and orchestral works with such conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Karl Böhm, Rafael Kubelik, Zubin Mehta, Thomas Schippers, Ricardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, James Levine and Colin Davis. Her recordings of Barber's Andromache's Farewell; Verdi's Requiem, Aïda (La Scala, Munich and Teatro Colón), Un ballo in maschera, La forza del destino (in both the standard and the 1862 versions) and I vespri siciliani; Mozart's Don Giovanni (both as Donna Anna and Donna Elvira); Beethoven's Missa Solemnis; Handel's Judas Maccabeus; Mahler's Symphony No. 8; Rossini's Stabat Mater and Schönberg’s Gurrelieder have all been recently reissued on CD.
Appointed by President Gerald Ford, Ms. Arroyo served on the National Endowment for the Arts for six years and continues to participate as an invited panelist and moderator. In addition, she remains actively associated with the National Council on the Arts as an Ambassador for the Arts. She sits on the Board of Directors of Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Opera Guild, and The Collegiate Chorale, as well as The Voice Foundation, which presented her with the V.E.R.A award in 2006.
A Trustee Emerita of the Hunter College Foundation, she has also served as an artistic advisor of the Harlem School of the Arts, the Singers Development Foundation, and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, among others. In 2002 Ms. Arroyo was inducted as a Fellow into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Amici di Verdi in London, Citizens Committee for New York City and Opera Index are a few of the many other groups that have honored her.
Ms. Arroyo has served as an adjudicator of many prestigious international competitions such as the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition of Belgium, the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, and the ARD International Music Competition in Munich.
Having delighted television and radio audiences with over twenty appearances on the "Tonight Show" on NBC-TV, she is a frequent guest and moderator on radio’s “Singers Roundtable”, the live intermission feature of the Saturday afternoon broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera.
Ms. Arroyo has taught at the University of California in Los Angeles, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and Wilberforce University in Ohio, as well as the School of Music of Indiana University where she remains Distinguished Professor of Music Emerita. She has also served on the Harvard College Board of Overseers for the Department of Music.
While she continues to present master classes and lectures at many institutions throughout the world, she is most passionate about the program she created in New York City. In 2003, she established The Martina Arroyo Foundation in order to offer a structured curriculum, focusing on the study and preparation of complete operatic roles, to emerging young artists at the inception of their professional careers. Whether as educator or performer of operatic roles, song literature or contemporary music, Martina Arroyo continues to share her superb artistry with the public.