Kathleen Flynn

Associate Professor
Affiliated Departments
Voice
Berklee Online
kflynn@berklee.edu
Telephone
617-747-6259

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Kathleen Flynn has performed across the globe with a repertoire spanning five centuries. She has sung diverse operatic roles under the batons of Seiji Ozawa, Julius Rudel, Robert Spano, Christopher Hogwood, Mario Bernardi, and Jane Glover. In addition, she has sung with Chicago Opera Theater and New York State Baroque, and at the National Arts Center of Ottawa with the Winnipeg Ballet, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Juilliard Theater, Carnegie Hall, and the Kennedy Center. Flynn is also an accomplished recitalist, performing in such locations as Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall and Lincoln Center Theater, Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood, and Harris Concert Hall at the Aspen Festival of Music. Her summer festival performances include those at the Banff Centre for the Arts; the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh, England; Tanglewood; Aspen Festival of Music; and the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan. She regularly sings at the Carmel Bach Festival and is a founding member of the new chamber music group, Ensemble Poema. Her recordings include A Hand of Bridge and Orchestral Songs by Samuel Barber with the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Ovidiu Marinescu. 

Flynn holds degrees from Stony Brook University, the Juilliard School with a residency at the Juilliard Opera Center, University of Toronto, and Dalhousie University. An associate professor at Berklee College of Music, she is also a faculty member at the Tufts Community Music Program at Tufts University and maintains a private voice studio in Boston.

Career Highlights
  • Member of Ensemble Poema and Vilas Baroque
  • Performances at Chicago Opera Theater, National Arts Center of Ottawa, the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and Alice Tully Hall
  • Recordings include work with Samuel Barber and the Russian Philharmonic Orchestra
In Their Own Words

"Technique is being able to sing freely and with ease so that your body can really obey your artistic ideas. What goes into that is a lot of study, a lot of rigorous and occasionally tedious repetition of exercises so they become muscle memory, so that when you're in a performance, you're not thinking, is my jaw tight? Is my tongue loose enough? Are my ribs expanded? You're only thinking about communicating with your audience."

"The Elements of Vocal Technique class is half lecture and half master class. Several people per class will get up and perform for the class, and then we work on technical issues that they have. For example, we look at the larynx so they have a better idea of what is physically going on with their instrument. It's much easier to see with an instrument outside of yourself. But when the instrument is you, it's so important to really understand the fundamentals so that you can keep healthy and have a long career."

"I am a classical singer. There's something about opera that is just addictive. I think that it's really a combination of collaborating with an orchestra, other singers, directors, conductors, and being onstage in costume. It's really exciting."

"One of the things that I was excited to find in Berklee's Voice Department is that they really want students to have a basic knowledge of classical bel canto singing. 'Bel canto' simply means 'beautiful singing' in Italian, but it encompasses an aesthetic of singing with your whole voice, with singing legato and with as much voice and vowel as you can. I think that can be translated into many styles and many genres. It's a really lovely, basic, healthy concept of singing."