Artistic C0-Directors Bios
American Vanguard Festival Guest Artists Bios
Lynn Helding, mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-Soprano Lynn Helding is Associate Professor of Voice at Dickinson College, a recitalist specializing in recital and chamber music of our time, a trained vocologist and singing voice specialist, and an active presenter on current topics in vocal pedagogy.
She has sung leading roles with Harrisburg Opera, Nashville Opera, Tennessee Opera Theatre, Ohio Light Opera and Indiana University Opera Theater. Her many stage credits include the title role in the first American production of Luigi Rossi's Orfeo. An active recitalist throughout the United States, Europe and Iceland, her solo performances there were broadcast on Icelandic National Radio, prompting the Reykjavik Morgunbladid to commend her as an “accomplished” and “gifted” singer. Highlights from her work in chamber music include the title role in Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, broadcast on Nashville Public Television’s series Recital Hall.
A champion of new music, she has premiered new works from composers, including Good Night, written for her and the Baltic Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra by award-winning Icelandic composer Thorkell Sigurbjornnson, which premiered in Providence, Rhode Island, Washington, D.C. and on the New Works series at Miller Theatre in New York.
In the summer of 1998 she joined forces with pianist Jennifer Blyth to form the Helding/Blyth Duo, an ensemble committed to vocal music of our time, performing their all-American song recital Made in America throughout Italy, England, Germany, Spain and Australia, where they served as Artists-in-Residence at Melbourne’s LaTrobe University. Other international highlights include performances of American song at the festival Reykjavík, European City of Culture 2000, at Bessastadir, the official residence of the President of Iceland, and Une Soirée de Musique Americaine in Toulouse, France, sponsored by the United States Consulate of Toulouse. The Duo made their New York City debut at the Brook Center for Music with This is My Letter to the World, a performance piece constructed of letters by Emily Dickinson interspersed with songs of Copland, Heggie, Bolcom and Laitman. The Duo’s contributions to the music of our time include commissioning new works from composers: Robert Pound’s Orbit of the Soul, based upon the writings of Oscar Wilde, and Love Songs in Age by Gerald Shapiro.