BIO

Soprano Jennifer Lien, lauded for her “sonorous, clear voice” and her dramatic range, has been seen on opera and concert stages in California, Florida, New York, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Singapore. She is a keen collaborator in chamber music, a proponent of contemporary music, and is known for her innovative recital programming. The 2023–2024 season will see Lien on tour with two projects: the world premiere and tour of Wendy Durrwachter’s Surface Displacements song cycle in Minnesota, and the recital Juxtapositions: European Orientalism, Asian America, & Asia in North Carolina with pianist Douglas Jurs.

Lien is a fiscal year 2024 recipient of a Creative Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board to co-commission three song cycles from three Asian American composers set to Asian American texts, and to embark on a recital tour in Minnesota.

In August 2022, Lien was featured in Messiaen’s Harawi with the Sing Song Club in Singapore. In June 2022, Lien made her Lyric Opera of the North debut as the Mother in Hansel and Gretel. In November 2021, Lien was featured in a virtual concert of French Orientalist music for the San Francisco International Piano Festival with pianist Gwendolyn Mok. In February 2020, Lien appeared as soprano soloist with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in Joe Hisaishi’s East Land Symphony. During the pandemic season, her performance in Poulenc’s one-woman opera La Voix Humaine, originally performed in 2018 to wide acclaim with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra’s chamber series, was streamed internationally. 

Lien has appeared in operatic roles with companies including New Opera Singapore, Mission City Opera, West Bay Opera, Oakland Opera Theater, West Marin Music Festival, Berkeley Opera, Solo Opera, San Francisco Lyric Opera, and Central Florida Lyric Opera. Oratorio engagements include Haydn’s The Creation and The Seasons; Saint-Saëns’ Christmas Oratorio; Handel’s Messiah; Vivaldi’s Gloria; Haydn’s Mass in Time of War; and Mozart’s Requiem. She has premiered numerous works by contemporary composers, and has performed in recital series in Minnesota, New York, California, and New Hampshire, and at the prestigious Esplanade arts center in Singapore. 

Lien made her operatic debut in the role of Papagena (The Magic Flute) with Singapore Lyric Opera, where she also appeared as Princess Stephanie in The Student Prince. She received further operatic training as a resident artist with Central Florida Lyric Opera, a young artist with the Seagle Festival, an apprentice artist with Bel Canto at Caramoor, and as a member of the OperaWorks Advanced Accelerated Singer program. Since the pandemic, Lien has been an active member of Bel Canto Boot Camp. Outside of music, Lien is a co-founder of the Twin Ports APIDA Collective, an organization to advocate for and raise awareness of the Asian Pacific Islander Desi American community in the Duluth-Superior region.

Returning to music after an early career as a newspaper journalist, Lien first began her vocal studies at Dartmouth College, where she was an English major. Under the guidance of soprano Erie Mills, she later received her Master of Arts in Music at San José State University. Lien holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Voice and an M.A. in Historical Musicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A seasoned vocal educator, Lien has taught voice to majors and non-majors at UW-Madison and at Beloit College. She currently teaches at The College of St. Scholastica in Duluth, MN.