Katie Linzmaier recently relocated from the Metro Detroit Area, where she was born and raised. Music almost never stopped playing in her house, but her family were far from performers. Katie, however, was a born entertainer. She was undeterred when her musical second-grade teacher placed her in front of the microphone to do various solos around her school. In third grade, she began being a part of her church’s youth choir and has been participating in choirs ever since.

The stage didn’t begin to call to her until she participated in her high school’s production of Beauty and the Beast during her freshmen year. Every opportunity she had to be on stage thereafter, she took: plays and musicals, on and off-stage. Musical theatre became her new obsession, and she pursued her passion to college. During her first couple years of university, her focus shifted to classical music, and she fell in love with the depth, poetry, and musical complexity of opera and art song. She graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance from Madonna University in 2018.

After school, she began teaching private lessons in voice and piano at Music Authority School in Dearborn Heights, MI, where she worked for four years. Over that time, she discovered her passion for teaching. In between work, she performed in several productions with professional opera companies local to the Detroit area, such as Main Street Opera, On Top of the World Productions, and Opera MODO.

Now she’s back in school to earn her master’s degree in Vocal Pedagogy at Belmont University so she can become an even better performer and teacher. While her education is founded in classical music, she has experience with and a love for music of all kinds, including musical theatre, pop, rock, and jazz. Her priority as a mentor is to help build her students’ confidence in themselves and their abilities, expand their knowledge and understanding of what music could be, and ensure they are practicing their passion in the best, healthiest way possible.

Katie’s Teaching Philosophy: “Music in itself is both work and play. Balancing the two in the classroom, along with what benefits and engages the student, is key.”

What’s been the highlight of your professional career — like your biggest spotlight moment to date?
“I performed with the local Detroit opera company, Opera MODO, in their production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute, except Opera MODO doesn’t do opera in an orthodox way. We did a production of The Magic Flute that utilized Nintendo characters with an English translation that worked marvelously with the music and performed it in an actual arcade. I played Monostatos, but dressed as Waluigi, and it was the first time in professional career I had an aria all to myself! The best part was I could ham it up as much as I wanted. It was a zany and hilarious time!”

Why are you passionate about teaching?
“I love being able to share my knowledge and excitement about music with others, but I especially love helping students find their voices and tastes in music they gravitate towards. I have the opportunity to expand their minds, inspire their imaginations, and open their eyes to the amazing potential they have, which to me, makes it one of the coolest jobs out there.”

What do you like to do in your free time?
“I write fiction in my free time and have been doing so since I was thirteen. I’ve co-written a pair of contemporary romance novels with a friend of mine that we hope to publish in the coming years!”

What is your favorite movie of all time?
“It’s so hard to pick one since I’m such a film nerd, but I have to say Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (1991). It gave me tons of inspiration as a teenager, and there’s an incredible amount of depth in its characters, music, design, and every aspect of its making, which I could relate to anyone in detail. Many of my favorite films are animated because I have such an admiration and fascination for them!”

When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
“I actually wanted to be a car designer for a while! I grew up in the Car Capital of the country and had an early fascination with how cars were constructed and how that made them efficient, but also look cool at the same time. I found them beautiful in their own way.”

What is your favorite quote?
“The amateur works until they get something right. A professional works until they can’t go wrong.” ~ Julie Andrews