Lynn Helding’s many stage credits include leading roles with Harrisburg Opera, Nashville Opera, Ohio Light Opera, Tennessee Opera Theatre and the title role in the first American production of Rossi’s Orfeo, featuring early instruments and performance practice. An active recitalist throughout the United States, Europe and Iceland, her performances there were broadcast on Icelandic National Radio, prompting the Reykjavik Morgunbladid to commend her as an “accomplished” and “gifted singer.”

A champion of new music, she premiered Good Night for voice and orchestra, written for her and the Baltic Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra by award-winning Icelandic composer Thorkell Sigurbjornnson at the Voyages: Nordic-Baltic Music Festival in Providence, Rhode Island, at the Finnish Embassy in Washington, D.C., and on Miller Theatre’s New Works series in New York.

In 1998 she joined forces with pianist Jennifer Blyth to form the Helding/Blyth Duo, an ensemble committed to vocal music of our time. They have appeared throughout Italy, England, France, Germany, Spain and Australia, where they served as Artists-in-Residence at Melbourne’s LaTrobe University, and in Iceland at venues as diverse as the world-famous Blue Lagoon and Bessastadir, the official residence of the President of Iceland. Their contributions to the music of our time encompass commissioning new works from composers.

A singing voice specialist in the emerging field of voice science, Helding spent the summers of 2002 and 2003 studying at the Summer Vocology Institute of the National Center for Voice and Speech, under the direction of esteemed voice scientist Dr. Ingo Titze. In 2005, she completed a Master’s Degree in Vocal Pedagogy from Westminster Choir College of Rider University, where she pursued research in the relationship between singing and cognitive science. Also in 2005, she was awarded the annual Van Lawrence Fellowship, a research grant given jointly by the Voice Foundation and National Association of Teacher’s of Singing Foundation to recognize those who have demonstrated excellence in their profession as singing teachers and have also pursued study in voice science. The grant will fund further research into rehabilitative therapies for the singing voice.

Helding studied voice at the University of Montana with Esther England, in Vienna with Kammersänger Otto Edelmann, and returned to the United States to study with Dale Moore at Indiana University where she was the first singer ever accepted to pursue the Artist Diploma in Voice. As a young student, she was honored with many awards, including semi-finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Auditions on the stage of the Met. She served four years as a member of the voice faculty at Vanderbilt University, and joined the Dickinson College music faculty in 1993.