The New Jersey Choral Society is privileged to work with Linda Sweetman-Waters, our rehearsal accompanist, frequently featured performance soloist and accompanist, friend, and the conductor’s second pair of ears. Read on to learn more about our “LSW”:

Linda Sweetman-Waters, pianist and organist, is an alumna of the Vienna State Academy of Music in Vienna, Austria, where her teachers were Alois Forer and Hans Schwertmann. Locally she began her musical training with Walter Schoeder.  Her keyboard talents have provided her with a multi-faceted career as piano soloist, chamber musician, accompanist and organist. She has performed in New York City at Carnegie Hall, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Weill Recital Hall, Lincoln Center’s Bruno Walter Auditorium, and WQXR’s “Listening Room”. Linda has also performed as guest soloist with the North Jersey Philharmonic and the Ramapo Wind Symphony. She has been heard at the White House and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Linda performed Saint Saens’ “Carnival of Animals” with Bob Sherman, narrator, at the Manchester Music Festival in Vermont, and was guest artist with the Ridgewood Symphony premiering the “Concerto for Piano and Orchestra”, composed for her by Richard Lane.         

As an international musician, most recently Linda has dazzled audiences in Vienna, at the International Haydn Festival, and in Beijing and Shanghai at the "Perform in Harmony - With Olympic Spirit" concerts in celebration of the XXIX Olympiad. In the summer of 2005, Linda toured with the New Jersey Choral Society, performing on organs in Dvorak Hall at the Rudolfinum in Prague and in Berlin’s Gedächtnis Kirche (Memorial Church). In her role as accompanist for NJCS she also toured in Italy. She has performed in Vienna, Copenhagen, London, Brussels, Zurich and Rome. Linda was invited to be the guest organist for the regional American Guild of Organists Convention in New Jersey and in Wisconsin; the Fellowship of American Baptist Musicians invited her to be their accompanist for the 25^th anniversary of the Conference for Church Musicians. The summer of 2006 found Linda working as accompanist for the Voices in the House International Music Festival in Sydney, Australia, with performances in the Sydney Opera House and Town Hall.

As an accompanist, Linda has collaborated with conductors Lenora Thom of the Asheville Choral Society, Joshua Greene of Canta Lyrica, and Eric Knapp of the New Jersey Choral Society. As an accompanist for MidAmerica Productions, NYC, she has worked under the baton of John Rutter. She also appeared in concert with Ani Kafavian and Richard Woitach. Her love of new music has resulted in frequent collaborations with Anne Marie Church and she was accompanist for both the European and American debuts of “American Art Song Today.” Linda is the featured pianist on the “ALIVE” CD on Josara! Record label and was accompanist for the program’s Weill Recital Hall debut in New York City.

As a chamber musician, Linda has been a member of Trio Classique since 1996. She also performed regularly with the Kean College Chamber Orchestra and is a participant with the Westchester Symphony.  

Linda is a magna cum laude graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University. In addition to her music studio for piano instruction, she has served as an adjunct faculty member at William Paterson University, and Vice-President of the Professional Music Teachers Guild, NJ.