Linda Maguire

Linda Maguire (born May 7, 1959) is an American classical and operatic vocalist, recording artist and pioneer in music and sensory therapies, She is best known for her wischen-fach operatic role Ermione in the 1995, BBC filmed Glyndebourne production of the Rossini opera Ermione.

Maguire was born in Newport News, Virginia and as a teenager, worked as a madrigal singer and costumed character in Williamsburg, Virginia before going on to study opera at the Oberlin Conservatory and the University of Toronto. One of her brothers is Michael Maguire, an American actor, best known for his role as Enjolras in the original Broadway production of the musical Les Misérables.

She has worked in the field of music therapy researching the Mozart Effect in Children and the Bach Effect in Adults and Alzheimers and other treatments. She continuers to study these via case study development and concurrent Neurological Studies at George Mason University. She founded the Krasnow Associates Program (George Mason University, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study). She sings and plays the keyboard and organ and is the music director/ organist Emmanuel on High Episcopal, Alexandria, Va.

Mezzo-soprano Linda Maguire is a vocal artist with an experience in concert, recital, and opera, as well as live broadcasts and recordings. She has sung with many of the major orchestras of North America, including Calgary, Dallas, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, and Tafelmusik. She has recorded on the Collins Classics and Deutsche Grammaphon Archiv labels, and has sung and recorded over eighty live vocal broadcasts of major works on radio stations CBC, BBC, NPR and others.

In 2004, she relocated from Toronto to Washington DC. She has sung numerous performances in The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, including Rossini's Stabat Mater, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand (No. 8), Bach's Cantata BWV 79, Amy Beach's Canticle of the Sun, and most recently, Mendlessohn's Elijah and Handel's Messiah during the 2008-2009 season.

After her early years in Newport News, Virginia, Ms. Maguire attended the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio before launching her twenty-three year international career as a highly respected vocal artist During this time, she has enjoyed a major operatic career, singing over thirty "zwischen" (essentially soprano) leading roles in the opera houses of many cities. In 1996, she toured extensively throughout the Netherlands, singing the lead contralto role in Gluck's Orfeo.