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Darlene Koldenhoven is a GRAMMY® Award Winner with 3 GRAMMY® nominations. She is a vocalist, keyboardist/pianist, composer, songwriter, arranger, lyricist, producer, author, actor, credentialed voice teacher, and certified sonic therapist. Darlene is known worldwide as the featured soprano soloist singing “Aria” in the PBS TV Special and Video, Yanni, Live at the Acropolis, seen by over 1.5 billion television viewers and millions more now on YouTube, and most notably, as the tambourine-waving choir nun with Whoopi Goldberg in both Sister Act films, where off-camera she was the production vocal coach and vocal contractor, music director, and rehearsal pianist during their choreography rehearsal. As a solo artist and author, Darlene recently appeared on WGN-TV Chicago/nationwide, being interviewed and performing two solo piano pieces from her new album, A Grand Memoir. The Los Angeles Chapter of The Recording Academy presented Darlene

with an MVP Best Session Singer award for singing on over 1,000 recordings in films, television, records, commercials, and charitable causes internationally. You’ll find her name and her 5-octave range on a plethora of artists’ albums, including Pink Floyd, Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, Neil Young, Celine Dion, Rod Stewart, Kenny Loggins, Ringo Starr, and as a lead soprano for Clare Fischer’s 2+2, the source of her GRAMMY® Award and 3 nominations in Best Jazz Vocal Performance by Group. Darlene has also performed as a soloist with David Byrne at the Royal Albert Hall with London’s Royal Philharmonic; the Chicago Symphony; on the Academy Awards® with the late Robin Williams, Paul McCartney at the Hollywood Bowl, and Ricky Kej at the Queen’s Palace in Bangalore, India. As a solo indie artist, Darlene is the first inductee into the IMC’s Indie Music Hall of Fame presented at the GRAMMY Museum®. She has an Outstanding Legacy Award and Hall of Fame induction from The Akademia; Lifetime Achievement Award and Hall of Fame induction from One World Music Radio; and Outstanding Artist 2023 from New Age Music Planet Gran Prix Awards.

 

Darlene has written her memoir, Put Your Dress Down and Sing (Sibylline Press), which recently won first place in Best Non-Fiction Music Entertainment Book in the 2026 PenCraft Awards for Literary Excellence. The ebook version ranked #1 on Amazon 7 times since its release on 8/7/26 in Classical Vocalist Biography/Memoir. Darlene performed a solo piano album of her original compositions titled A Grand Memoir (TimeArt®), a companion to the book, albeit sold separately. The release date for the book, e-book, audiobook, album, and album sheet music was 8/7/26. Music from the album appears throughout her audiobook. The music came to Darlene in the form of awakening dreams while she wrote her memoir.

 

Her previous two solo piano albums, The Grand Piano Spa (5/14/21) and The Grand Piano Spa: Legacy (10/22/21), ranked a Hot Shot Debut at #4 on Billboard’s Classical Crossover Albums Chart (week of May 29, 2021) and at #8 on the same chart in November later that year, both the first week the albums came out.

 

Darlene’s label, TimeArt® Recordings, now has fourteen of her albums and several singles, which are heard all over the world, including on SiriusXM, Pandora, Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube, SoundCloud, Music Choice, and hundreds of additional radio stations worldwide. Her instrumental albums are

played in treatment rooms of massage, yoga, and healing practitioners and are on rotation on the CARE Channel Network in hospitals and hospices worldwide. Even Olympic athletes like Olympic Silver Medalist and US Champion Figure Skater Sasha Cohen perform to her music.

 

She has received many awards for her vocal and piano New Age/Classical Crossover albums, including several “Best of” albums. Many have debuted #1 on the ZMR International Radio Charts as well as Australia’s SoundsLikeCafe Radio Charts & Europe’s New Age Music Guide Radio Charts (11/22).

 

Born and raised in Chicago, Darlene’s formal piano training, which began at age 9, made the piano her closest friend. Despite losing the use of her right hand for five years due to a horrible accident twenty-eight years ago, which even after reconstructive surgery left one finger deformed, she forged on, regaining most of her piano

prowess. She now performs her solo piano compositions in concert.

 

Ms. Koldenhoven holds a Master’s degree in voice and a Bachelor’s in Music Education from Chicago Conservatory College. She taught for six years in the Chicago suburban school system as an elementary school music teacher. Darlene has authored an educational book with 7 instructional CDs & downloads titled Tune Your Voice: Singing and Your Mind’s Musical Ear, endorsed by faculty from Juilliard, American Idol, Berklee, and NYU. She is a credentialed voice teacher and certified Integrated Listening Systems sonic therapist who helps people overcome dis-ease, by using her therapeutic music and unique listening techniques in her private practice, as well as her healing music concerts and workshops.

 

 

She lives in the Studio City part of Los Angeles, California, with her singing rescue dog, Poochini, and sews her own clothes and gowns. Listen and learn more at DarleneKoldenhoven.com