Former Distinguished Professor of Music Louis Roney will be inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame. He joins such legendary artists as Ray Charles, Ernest Hemingway and Zora Neale Hurston.
Roney was football captain at Winter Park High School and honor graduate of Harvard University before serving four years in the U.S. Navy during World War II. He went on to spend forty years as a leading operatic tenor in Europe and North America and was engaged as soloist by such symphony orchestras as New York, Boston, Montreal, Amsterdam, Paris, Florence, and Vancouver.
Following his heralded opera career, Roney returned to Winter Park and joined the faculty of the University of Central Florida. He was founder and director of the popular Festival of Orchestras, bringing the world’s orchestras to Orlando to perform with Florida’s best concert musicians. UCF honored him with their Distinguished Professor Faculty Award in 2000.
For the last 23 years, Roney has penned the “Play On!” column for the Winter Park/Maitland Observer.