Lynn Swanson Receives ACME Award
Grace Organist/Choir Director Lynn Swanson has been honored with the ACME award presented by Mu Phi Epsilon International Music Fraternity.
Mu Phi Epsilon annually presents awards to honor Artists, Composers, Musicologists, and Educators. Award recipients are chosen by their peers and are considered to have achieved a high level of professionalism and musical excellence in their concentrated field. These recipients are members in good standing with Mu Phi Epsilon and have received national and/or international acclaim. Honorees and their attainments are published worldwide so as to recognize their outstanding achievements and to provide other artists with mentors that will advise other musicians in the same category as his or her music profession.
Congratulations Lynn!
Full Bio
Ms. Swanson is Music Director & Organist of Grace Episcopal Church, as well as Director of the New South Festival Singers and the Cobb Summer Singers. A native of the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, Georgia, she holds the Bachelor of Music in Organ Performance from Shorter University, and the Master of Music Education in Choral Pedagogy from the University of Kansas.
Ms. Swanson is one of the most consequential leaders in the nearly four-decade history of the William Baker Choral Foundation. She has enjoyed a significant international career, serving as Associate Organist of the Kronberg Evangelical Church, Kronberg, Germany and Christ the King Anglican Church, Frankfurt, Germany. Her position also included a choral performance in the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral and organ/choral performance at the American Cathedral in Paris. Significant church positions where she has served as Music Director and as Organist/Choirmaster, include All Saints Cathedral in Milwaukee, St. Benedict’s Episcopal Church in Smyrna, Georgia, and Due West United Methodist Church in Marietta. Under her direction, the Grace Church Parish Choir will serve as Choir-in-Residence at Exeter Cathedral, England in August, 2024.
From 2017-2018 she served as Assistant Director of the Zhuhai Classical Children’s Choir in Zhuhai, China, near Hong Kong. During her lauded tenure there she conducted the chorus on national television as part of the Tenth Annual International Chamber Music Festival of the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. While in residence in China, she traveled to the city of Wuhan where she served as Artist-in-Residence at the Hong An Tian Thai Temple Monastery. During her three week tenure she prepared the 60 voice Monastery Choir for their first performance at the Beijing International Choral Competition 2018. The choir performed Italian motets, anthems in Latin, English and Chinese. The choir was awarded gold medals for their inaugural performance by adjudicators from around the world.
Ms. Swanson served a number of leading positions with the Choral Foundation from 2006-2018. She founded the Cobb Summer Singers in 2006, the Northside Young Singers in 2008, the Cobb Festival Singers in 2009, and the Institute for Healthy Singing in 2015. She served as associate director of the Choral Foundation’s original ensemble, now called The New South Festival Singers, from 2010 to 2015, before her appointment as the second music director of the ensemble in 2015, a positions she held until 2017. Lynn Swanson co-created the Summer Singers of Lee’s Summit in 2014, and served as Executive Associate Music Director of the Choral Foundation from 2011-2017. Her choirs have recorded three albums: Between Heaven and Earth, Live in Charleston, and Legacies of Light.
From 2017-2019, Ms. Swanson’s blog, DevelopingVoices, was featured as the headline blog each Tuesday on ChoralNet.org, The American Choral Directors Association’s daily newsletter. Her articles were all researched-based bringing new findings on the science behind the voice to aid fellow singers and choral directors around the world.
Ms. Swanson’s conducting portfolio of choral-orchestral masterworks is extensive, including Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem, Bach: Mass in B Minor, Magnificat, Christ lag in todesbanden, and Wachet auf; Faure: Requiem; Handel: Messiah, Israel in Egypt, Dettingen Te Deum and Coronation Anthems, Mozart: Coronation Mass, Great Mass in C Minor, Solemn Vespers Missa Brevis in D, Mass in D Beethoven: Mass in C and Mendelssohn: Elijah, Saint-Saëns: Christmas Oratorio along with many other works. Collaborations have involved musicians from the Kansas City Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and the Kazinetti String Quartet.
Ms. Swanson is a member of the Mu Phi Epsilon Fraternity and the American Choral Directors Association.