Biography
Cynthia Lin, who sings, writes songs, and plays multiple instruments, has built an eclectic path through folk, blues, jazz, and standards while also guiding others in developing their own skills. Raised in Chicago, she discovered music early and trained on violin and piano during childhood. A period of hula lessons ended with her teacher giving her a ukulele after the young musician showed interest in the instrument.
Upon finishing high school she received a guitar as a gift, then began composing original material while earning an economics degree at Princeton University. After graduation she took a position at a software company in Washington D.C., yet soon left corporate work to focus on the arts.
While enrolled in acting classes, she spent idle moments backstage writing guitar songs that led to performances at neighborhood coffeehouses. Drawing on jazz singers such as Ella Fitzgerald and songwriters in the vein of Joni Mitchell, she described her sound as “acoustic folk jazz” and issued her first independent EP, Blue and Borderlined, in 2005.
Her next recording, the seven-song EP Doppelganger, arrived in 2007 after she had settled in New York City and begun touring nationally. For the 2010 album Microscope she served as producer, engineer, and mixer. Late that year she began a series of seasonal digital singles with her reading of Vince Guaraldi and Lee Mendelson’s “Christmas Time Is Here.”
In 2011 she returned to the ukulele and released a digital single of “That’s All” played on the instrument. By 2014 she had moved to San Francisco and formed the Blue Moon All Stars, whose accompaniment supported her vocals and ukulele work on both originals and standards; the ensemble became a local mainstay whose reach widened with the growing popularity of the ukulele.
Her 2017 album Ukulele Days honored her chosen instrument, and she continued offering in-person and Skype lessons on ukulele and voice, encouraging students to treat creativity as a form of personal expression.
Upon finishing high school she received a guitar as a gift, then began composing original material while earning an economics degree at Princeton University. After graduation she took a position at a software company in Washington D.C., yet soon left corporate work to focus on the arts.
While enrolled in acting classes, she spent idle moments backstage writing guitar songs that led to performances at neighborhood coffeehouses. Drawing on jazz singers such as Ella Fitzgerald and songwriters in the vein of Joni Mitchell, she described her sound as “acoustic folk jazz” and issued her first independent EP, Blue and Borderlined, in 2005.
Her next recording, the seven-song EP Doppelganger, arrived in 2007 after she had settled in New York City and begun touring nationally. For the 2010 album Microscope she served as producer, engineer, and mixer. Late that year she began a series of seasonal digital singles with her reading of Vince Guaraldi and Lee Mendelson’s “Christmas Time Is Here.”
In 2011 she returned to the ukulele and released a digital single of “That’s All” played on the instrument. By 2014 she had moved to San Francisco and formed the Blue Moon All Stars, whose accompaniment supported her vocals and ukulele work on both originals and standards; the ensemble became a local mainstay whose reach widened with the growing popularity of the ukulele.
Her 2017 album Ukulele Days honored her chosen instrument, and she continued offering in-person and Skype lessons on ukulele and voice, encouraging students to treat creativity as a form of personal expression.
Albums
