Lynn Swanson, MME

Music director, new south festival singers and Founder & Music Director Cobb Summer Singers

Lynn Swanson, Director of the New South Festival Singers and the Cobb Summer Singers, is 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 Choral Foundation in Atlanta. She has enjoyed a significant international career, serving church positions in Germany that included a performance in the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.  Significant church positions where she has served as Music Director and as Organist/Choirmaster, including All Saints Cathedral in Milwaukee, St. Benedict’s Episcopal Church in Smyrna, Georgia, and Due West United Methodist Church in Marietta. She currently serves as Music Director & Organist at Grace Episcopal Church in Gainesville, GA. The Grace Parish Choir will serve as Choir-in-Residence at Exeter Cathedral, England in August, 2024.

In 2022-23 Ms. Swanson was honored with the ACME award presented by Mu Phi Epsilon International Music Fraternity. Mu Phi Epsilon's 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. The annual award honors Artists, Composers, Musicologists, and Educators from around the world.

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 in China in a performance at the Beijing International Music Festival. While in residence in China, she traveled to Wuhan to spend three weeks preparing the 60 voice Hong An Tian Thai Temple Monastery Choir for their first performance at the Beijing International Choral Competition 2018. The choir received all gold medals under the direction of Conductor Lynn Swanson.

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.

Ms. Swanson’s conducting portfolio of choral-orchestral masterworks is extensive, including Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem, Bach: Mass in B Minor, Christ lag in todesbanden, and Wachet auf, Handel: Messiah, Israel in Egypt, Dettingen Te Deum and Coronation Anthems, Mozart: Coronation Mass, Solemn Vespers, and Missa Brevis in D, Beethoven: Mass in C and Mendelssohn: Elijah, along with many other works.  Collaborations have involved musicians from the Kansas City Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and the Kazinetti Quartet.