Bio

Meet Linn

Linn Maxwell has performed on the stages of major orchestras, opera companies and recital halls across the United States and 25 foreign countries. She now brings her worldwide experience and classical training to the musical theater and cabaret stages. Linn has performed cabaret and one-woman shows in New York City and in March 2006 made her European cabaret debut at the International Theater, Frankfurt, Germany. The Frankfurter Rundschau said of her show, “Linn Maxwell captured the hope within the songs and revived a bygone era…Her performance was marked with a glowing perfection.”

From the start of her career, Linn has been acclaimed for her outstanding voice and diction, as well as her interpretation of many different musical styles and languages. As a winner of Joy in Singing, she made her New York recital debut at Tully Hall. The concert garnered praise from the New York Times: “A true mezzo soprano, ample in size yet easily modulated in either registral extreme and graced with an appealing plangency of timbre.” And the San Francisco Chronicle wrote of her Carmel Bach Festival performance, “Her technique was flawless, her control spun out the long florid passages; her tone and phrasing were beautiful.”

Today Linn’s passion is combining her acting and singing to bring to life many characters, both historical and fictional, and inviting her audiences to discover them with her.

A native of Indiana, mezzo soprano Linn Maxwell Keller enjoys a rich and varied career which has taken her to the stages of major orchestras, opera companies and recital halls across the U.S. and 25 foreign countries. Ms. Keller has been a soloist with the orchestras of Toronto, Cleveland, Chicago, Seattle, Oregon, Puerto Rico, San Antonio, Kansas City (where she appeared with Leonard Bernstein), Rochester, Denver, Brooklyn, Minnesota and the Orchestra of the U.N.A.M of Mexico City. In demand with oratorio and choral societies, Ms. Keller has appeared with the Bach festivals of Rochester, New York (for twelve seasons), Oregon (with Helmuth Rilling), Kalamazoo and Carmel. The San Francisco Chronicle said of her Carmel performance: “Her technique was flawless, her control spun out the long florid passages; her tone and phrasing were beautiful.” She is the founder of the Grand Rapids Bach festival, has appeared with the Oratorio Society of Washington at the Kennedy Center, the Pro Arte Chorale at Carnegie Hall, the Oratorio Society of Utah in a nationally televised performance of Handel’s Messiah from the Mormon Tabernacle, and on several occasions with Musica Sacra at New York’s Lincoln Center. In recent seasons she has sung the Mozart Requiem with the Sofia, Bulgaria Philharmonic, premiered “Mary Cassatt” by Libby Larsen with the Grand Rapids Symphony, performed a concert of Russian opera arias with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and premiered a song cycle by Patrick Kavanaugh at Washington’s Kennedy Center in 2002.

Linn Maxwell Keller began her career in Europe, spending two seasons at the Städtische Bühnen in Essen, Germany where she sang Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, and also singing major roles with the opera companies of Strassbourg, Lyon, Toulouse, the Netherlands (where she sang Baroque operas with Nicholas Harnancourt and Rosina in Barbiere di Siviglia), Hungarian State Opera and concerts with the Berlin Radio Orchestra. Her opera engagements in the U.S. have included San Francisco Opera in the role of Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, conducted by Placido Domingo, two appearances with Santa Fe Opera, and Tales of Hoffmann with Cincinnati Opera. She performed two roles in the New York off-Broadway production of The Mother of Us All by Virgil Thomson. Recent roles with Opera Grand Rapids include Herodias in Solome (1998), the Countess in Queen of Spades (2001) and Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro, (1995, 2003).

Ms. Keller was a winner of the Joy in Singing Award, which enabled her to present her New York recital debut at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. The New York Times said of her debut, “A true mezzo soprano, ample in size yet easily modulated in either registral extreme and graced with an appealing plangency of timbre.” Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, she has made three tours to South America giving recitals, master classes, concerts and television appearances with the National Symphony of Peru and the Bogota Philharmonic. She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Grant. In 1988 she made a post-Olympics recital tour of Korea.

Linn Maxwell Keller is a graduate of the University of Maryland and holds a Master of Music degree from the Catholic University of America. She has recorded for RCA Red Seal, New World, Centaur and Albany Records. She currently serves as president of the Joy in Singing, and the Grand Rapids Bach Festival.