Ruzena Herlinger

Ruzena Schwartz Herlinger (8 February 1890 – 19 February 1978) was a Czech-born Canadian singer and voice teacher, noted for performing and promoting the works of contemporary European composers in the 1920s and 1930s.

Early life and education
Schwartz was born on 8 February 1890 in Tábor, Bohemia. She studied piano and voice from childhood, and trained in Vienna and Berlin as a youth.

Career
Herlinger, described as a soprano and a mezzo-soprano, performed and promoted works by modern European composers, including Maurice Ravel, Erik Satie, Paul Pisk, Anton Webern, Ernst Krenek, Gustav Mahler, and Alban Berg; Berg wrote a concert aria, "Der Wein", for her. She was active in the International Society for Contemporary Music in Vienna. "She has a voice of superior beauty and highly cultivated," wrote one critic in 1934, "while her phrasing and expression bespeak high musicality and taste."

Herlinger lived in England during World War II. After the war, she returned to Prague for a few years, to conduct the Prague Radio Choir.

She moved to Canada in 1949. She taught voice at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec (CMM) from 1957 to 1962, and at McGill University from 1963 to 1970. Her notable Canadian students included Claire Gagnier, Joseph Rouleau, Huguette Tourangeau, and André Turp.

Personal life
Schwartz married industrialist Alfred Herlinger. She became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1954. She died on 19 February 1978, at the age of 88, in Montreal. There is a collection of her papers in the Oskar Morawetz Collection of the Music Division of the Library and Archives Canada, in Ottawa.