Verna Osborne

Verna Osborne, in the 1930s

Verna Osborne (May 12, 1903 – April 7, 2006) was an American soprano and voice teacher. Born Verna MacMahan (also spelled MacMahon) in Brooklyn, she adopted the name of Verna Osborne after beginning her career as a concert pianist in the early 1920s at the age of 18. She trained as a soprano under Estelle Liebling and by 1923 she was working as a singer on the radio in New York City. She was principally a radio vocalist in New York for the next thirteen years, working primarily for the WEAF (now WFAN) and WOR radio stations, notably having her own program on the latter station from 1933 to 1936. She made her debut on the concert stage in 1934 at New York City's Town Hall.

By 1937 Osborne had relocated to Los Angeles where she worked as a radio and church vocalist. In May 1938 she joined NBC Radio in San Francisco where she had her own program that aired three times a week in the late 1930s. She lived in the San Francisco region for the rest of her life. As a performer she is best remembered for her work singing with the San Francisco Opera (SFO) from 1940 to 1943 and as a frequent soloist with the San Francisco Symphony during the 1940s and early 1950s. After this period her professional engagements decreased as she dedicated her time more and more to teaching. She did on occasion continue to work professionally, and as late as 1967 appeared in concert at a music festival held at Carolands. During her early teaching career she was active as a recitalist and performed at amateur community events during the 1950s and 1960s. Her voice is preserved on recordings made for Hargail Records and the Music Library record label.

In c. 1949 Osborne began a more than five-decade-long teaching career in the San Francisco region. She worked as a voice teacher in Marin County, California, for a variety of different schools and also out of a private studio. In 1957 she was appointed head of the opera department at the Peninsula Conservatory of Music, an institution she taught at until at least 1974. She was also an adjunct member of the voice faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, teaching at their extension campus in San Francisco. She retired from teaching around 2004 at the age of 101. She died in 2006 at the age of 102.