Born in Los Angeles, Linda Stones attended San Jose State College (B.A, 1961), California State University, Northridge (M.A., 1971), and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (D.M.A., 1985).
In the intervening years she sang such roles as Meg Page [Falstaff], Flora [Traviata], Mercedes [Carmen], Duchess von Eberbach [Lortzing's Wildschutz], Irmentraut [Lortzing's Waffenschmied], Waldhexe [Dvorak's Rusalka], Mother and Witch [Humperdinck's Hansel u. Gretel], Duchess de Grancai [Kunneke's Liselott], Maturine [Gluck's reformed Drunkard], Alte Burya [Janacek's Jenufa], along with roles in R. Strauss' Elektra, and Bert Rudolf's Der Traum des Ovid at the Landestheater Linz, Austria, the Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern, Germany, as well as guest appearances at the theaters in Klagenfurt, Ludwigshafen, Worms, Saint Quentin, and Luxemburg. She has sung concerts and recitals in Austria, West Germany, Brazil, and the United States. As part of the Los Angeles Bicentennial celebration of the French Revolution, Dr. Stones produced Monsigny's opera On ne s'avise jamais de tout in June 1989, and has penned three articles on Andre Gretry for the International Dictionary of Opera. At Cal State Northridge, she has sung major roles in Ballad of Baby Doe, Rake's Progress, Rape of Lucratia, and Falstaff.
Dr. Stones has received several National Endowments of the Humanities stipends for her work in eighteenth-Century Italian opera, From Source to Score, Music of the Classic Era and, many others. She continues to teach voice and musicology at California State University, Northridge.