Biography
Often labeled “the Mary Poppins of children’s music,” Linda Arnold pairs her crystalline soprano with imaginative, fantasy-driven material that has long enchanted preschool listeners and their families alike. Across recorded albums, videos, and televised specials she conjures an enchanted realm in which teddy bears reign as monarchs and dinosaurs take the baseball field.
She entered the world in New York City and spent her formative years between the greater New York region and Los Angeles. While enrolled at the University of California at Santa Cruz, she concentrated on music and theater arts. After graduation she collaborated with her husband, Eric Thiermann, on scores for several documentaries and on the folk-leaning projects Sweet Mother Earth and Nine Months, the latter chronicling the journey of pregnancy. Motherhood later prompted a decisive shift in her creative direction.
Finding scant worthwhile children’s music for her own family, Arnold began composing and performing expressly for young audiences. She established her independent imprint Ariel Records, christened after her daughter. The label’s debut release, Make Believe, appeared in 1986 and showcased the child’s voice on a set of original preschool vignettes that included “Popcorn” and “Mommy Go to Sleep.” A rapid succession of further titles followed: Happiness Cake in 1988, Peppermint Wings in 1990, and the 1991 collection The Rainbow Palace, devoted to songs drawn from musical theater.
In 1989 Arnold became one of the earliest children’s performers invited to the Kaleidoscope Concert series on The Disney Channel. Around the same period her catalog began appearing through A&M’s newly launched children’s division, while she maintained an active touring calendar that frequently took her to zoos and children’s museums.
She independently produced the 1992 video Linda Arnold’s World of Make Believe, honored with a Film Institute Award of Excellence. Two years afterward she issued the acoustic lullaby collection Lullaby Land, which earned both a Parents’ Choice Gold Award and a National Association of Parenting Publications Gold Award. When A&M shuttered its children’s operation, Arnold returned to Ariel Records and delivered Sing Along Stew together with Favorites in the Key of Fun, a retrospective drawn from earlier recordings. Circus Magic surfaced in 2005; the following year brought Splash Zone and Broadway for Kids at the Rainbow Palace, an effort designed to evoke the lively atmosphere of live musical theater for young listeners.
She entered the world in New York City and spent her formative years between the greater New York region and Los Angeles. While enrolled at the University of California at Santa Cruz, she concentrated on music and theater arts. After graduation she collaborated with her husband, Eric Thiermann, on scores for several documentaries and on the folk-leaning projects Sweet Mother Earth and Nine Months, the latter chronicling the journey of pregnancy. Motherhood later prompted a decisive shift in her creative direction.
Finding scant worthwhile children’s music for her own family, Arnold began composing and performing expressly for young audiences. She established her independent imprint Ariel Records, christened after her daughter. The label’s debut release, Make Believe, appeared in 1986 and showcased the child’s voice on a set of original preschool vignettes that included “Popcorn” and “Mommy Go to Sleep.” A rapid succession of further titles followed: Happiness Cake in 1988, Peppermint Wings in 1990, and the 1991 collection The Rainbow Palace, devoted to songs drawn from musical theater.
In 1989 Arnold became one of the earliest children’s performers invited to the Kaleidoscope Concert series on The Disney Channel. Around the same period her catalog began appearing through A&M’s newly launched children’s division, while she maintained an active touring calendar that frequently took her to zoos and children’s museums.
She independently produced the 1992 video Linda Arnold’s World of Make Believe, honored with a Film Institute Award of Excellence. Two years afterward she issued the acoustic lullaby collection Lullaby Land, which earned both a Parents’ Choice Gold Award and a National Association of Parenting Publications Gold Award. When A&M shuttered its children’s operation, Arnold returned to Ariel Records and delivered Sing Along Stew together with Favorites in the Key of Fun, a retrospective drawn from earlier recordings. Circus Magic surfaced in 2005; the following year brought Splash Zone and Broadway for Kids at the Rainbow Palace, an effort designed to evoke the lively atmosphere of live musical theater for young listeners.
Albums
