Marian Bodnar

Treasurer

email: treasurer@natslachapter.org

Lyric soprano Marian Bodnar has had a varied career as a singer, actress, director, and educator.  On the professional roster of the Los Angeles Master Chorale for many years, as well as Los Angeles Opera, she has sung many times with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and at the Oregon Bach Festival. Marian has played leading roles in West Side Story, How to Succeed in Business..., Carousel, and several other shows in regional Southland theatres. Her voice has been featured in recordings for Disney, as well as in several films, and as a backup singer in concerts for Andy Williams, Megan Mullaley, Jason Robert Brown, Ricky Ian Gordon, and Adam Guettel; and, for several years, she performed in Los Angeles cabaret venues.

Her work as a director spans over sixty shows in Los Angeles, writing, producing, and organizing both musical theatre productions as well as singers' showcases. Teaching singing and musical theatre at the esteemed Stella Adler Academy in Hollywood for over fifteen years, Ms. Bodnar developed a unique and effective methodology for bringing out believable, moving performances from the actors with whom she worked, leading her to also work on Broadway, coaching actors such as Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith, Penelope Cruz, and several others.

Marian holds a Bachelor of Music in Voice, suma cum lauda, from California State University, Fullerton, and a Master of Music in Voice & Opera degree, Pi Kappa Lambda, from California State University, Long Beach. She studied musical theatre with reknowned author and teacher David Craig, and with Joanna Gleason, and UCLA's John Hall; opera with Ann Baltz of OperaWorks; acting with associates of Robert Lewis; and cabaret with actress Karen Morrow. Taking a strong interest in vocal pedagogy, she took intensive seminars with Richard Miller, Scott McCoy, Jeannie LoVetri, and Lisa Popiel, and she is a certified Somatic Voice Technique Teacher. 

On the faculty at CSU, Long Beach for twenty-eight years, Ms. Bodnar has taught Voice, Lyric Diction (English, Italian, French, and German), Vocal Pedagogy, Theory, and Acting for Singers. She has also served on the faculties of Fullerton College, Citrus College, Orange County High School of Performing Arts, Idllywild School of Music and the Arts, El Camino College, and the Stella Adler Academy in Hollywood. She authored the Vocal Technique series of textbooks for the Musician's Institute of Hollywood. Marian has twice served as President, and as 1st Vice President of Programs for the National Association of Teachers of Singing, Los Angeles chapter. She currently serves as Treasurer. She is a member of AGMA, as well as the New York Singing Teachers Association, and the Voice and Speech Teachers’ Association.