Lynn Helding, USC Thornton School of Music

Lynn Helding is Professor of Practice in Vocal Pedagogy at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music. She is an associate editor of the Journal of Singing and author of the journal’s “Mindful Voice” column, which illuminates current research in the cognitive, neuro- and social sciences as they relate to music teaching, learning and performance. Ms. Helding is a thought-leader within the dynamic field of contemporary voice science, or vocology and was elected to head the founding of the first vocology association, PAVA, incorporated in 2014 as a 501(c)(6) non-profit association. She was the 2005 recipient of the National Van Lawrence Fellowship, jointly awarded by the NATS Foundation and the Voice Foundation to those who have “demonstrated excellence in their profession as singing teachers, and have shown knowledge of voice science.”

Lynn Helding’s stage credits include the title role in the first American production of Luigi Rossi’s Orfeo, and leading mezzo-soprano roles with Harrisburg Opera, Nashville Opera, Tennessee Opera Theatre, and Ohio Light Opera. A deep commitment to art song led her to create such projects as Made in America, a narrative song recital of works by eighteen American composers which toured Italy, France, England, Germany, Spain and Australia and Iceland, and the theatrical performance piece This is My Letter to the World, a song recital which she assembled using spoken fragments of Emily Dickson’s letters interspersed with Dickinson songs by composers Aaron Copland, Jake Heggie, William Bolcolm and Lori Laitman, which premiered at the Brook Center for Music in New York City. Her highlights in chamber music include the title role in Schoenberg’s Perrot Lunaire, broadcast on Nashville Public Television, and Good Night, written for Lynn Helding and the Baltic Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra by Icelandic composer Thorkell Sigurbjornnson, which premiered at Miller Theatre’s “New Works” series in New York.Lynn Helding studied voice at the University of Montana, in Vienna, Austria, and at Indiana University, where she was the first singer ever accepted to pursue the prestigious Artist Diploma in Voice. She earned her master’s degree in vocal pedagogy from Westminster Choir College of Rider University, and completed the Summer Vocology Institute of the National Center for Voice and Speech in Salt Lake City, where she has returned as guest faculty. Her voice teachers have included Esther England, Dale Moore, and Chris Arneson, and voice science mentors Scott McCoy, Ingo Titze and Katherine Verdolini-Abbott. Previous to USC, she taught voice at Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music, and served twenty-two years as Associate Professor of Voice and Director of Performance Studies at Dickinson College.


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