Camp Faculty
Lyn Koenning has over twenty years’ teaching, conducting and performing experience. She discovered her calling early in life when she began teaching piano to neighborhood children and “directing” musicals at about age eight. Nearly four decades later, she is more passionate than ever about inspiring students to excel in the performing arts.
An accomplished pianist, Lyn has extensive performing credits as a collaborative pianist for voice, wind, brass, orchestra, cover and pop bands, and musical theatre and opera, and she has had a rewarding career as a private and group piano teacher. In 2002 Lyn was one of only six teachers in Texas to earn national certification by Music Teachers National Association. After developing a successful after-school group piano program for elementary school students in collaboration with the National Piano Foundation, Lyn was invited to present the model at MTNA’s 2005 National Convention for duplication nationwide.
Lyn’s experience as a performer and teacher perfectly complements her love for musical theatre. She has served as musical director or conductor for, at last count, forty productions in Austin, five of which were named Best Musical including Beehive, Rockin’ Christmas Party, Dreamgirls, Big River, and The Secret Garden. Lyn has had multiple appearances as musical director at ZACH, the Paramount Theatre, the State Theatre, UT’s B. Iden Payne and Brockett Theatres, St. Edwards’ Mary Moody Northen Theatre, and Zilker Hillside Theatre. She has been nominated by the Austin Circle of Theatres and the Austin Critics’ Table as Best Musical Director for Five Guys Named Moe (1994), The Beggar’s Opera (1995), A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine (1999), and Big River (1999). She was the recipient of the Austin Critics’ Table Award for Best Musical Director in 2005 for The Secret Garden (Zilker Hillside Theatre) and Cabaret (UT).
Lyn is teaching a new course, “Singing for the Stage,” conceived and created by her specifically for the UT Department of Theatre and Dance, and she will be musical director, conductor and pianist for the department’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s “Assassins” in April, 2008.
