Hayes School of Music

Dramatic soprano Lesley Anne Friend is the Assistant Professor of Voice and Opera in the Hayes School of Music at Appalachian State University, where she is the director of opera and teaches applied voice. She has maintained a private studio teaching classical and musical theatre voice since 2008. Before joining the Hayes School of Music, Dr. Friend was an assistant professor of music at Southwestern Oklahoma State University where she directed the opera workshop and served as vocal coach for the musical theatre productions in addition to teaching applied voice and music history. Previously, she was an instructor at Indiana University, Norfolk State University, and Elizabeth City State University.

Dr. Friend has been honored as a Metropolitan Opera National Council Awards Semi-Finalist and by the Opera Birmingham Vocal Competition, Marguerite McCammon Vocal Competition, Connecticut Concert Opera, the Orpheus Competition, and the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition. Her roles include the title roles in Tosca and Ariadne auf Naxos, Helmwige in Die Walküre, Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes, Giorgetta in Il Tabarro, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Fiordiligi in Così fan Tutte, Miss Jessel in The Turn of the Screw, the title role in Suor Angelica, The Witch in Hansel and Gretel, and Magda Sorel in The Consul. She has sung all over with companies like Virginia Opera, Painted Sky Opera, Opera on the Avalon, Sugar Creek Opera, Sarasota Opera, Opera Memphis, and others. 

Dr. Friend has long been passionate about new works and less-performed repertoire. She has performed in regional and world premieres of works by numerous composers, including American composers Zachery Redler and Stephen Schwartz, singing Magnanimous in Windows and Myra Foster in Seance on a Wet Afternoon respectively. Her orchestral work includes Varese's Offrandes, the music of Harry Partch, and Ginastera's Cantata para América Mágica in celebration of the composer's 100th birthday at Indiana University’s Latin American Music Center. Most recently she sang in the OK City Opera Micro Opera Festival, a festival of new operas 10-20 minutes in length.

Dr. Friend sang her first Verdi Requiem with Boston’s Chorus Pro Musica and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Hartt School of Music Choirs and Orchestra and the New Haven Chorale. She has also performed Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer 1915 with the Indiana University Orchestra. Lesley received her B.M. cum laude in Vocal Performance from Montclair State University her M.M. in Opera from The Boston Conservatory, an artist diploma from the University of Memphis, and her DM in Vocal Performance and Literature from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where she studied with famed soprano Carol Vaness.