Linda Binder, violinist and mandolinist, freelances and performs regularly with several ensembles in the Milwaukee / Chicago area.

Linda plays violin and mandolin with singer songwriter Steve Smith in Smith & Binder, performing jazz standards and vintage pop music, as well as originals by Steve Smith. Linda plays mandolin and mandola with The Lake Mandolin Quartet and Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra, and performs actively on bandolim, a Brazilian style mandolin, in Chicago, and with Milwaukee based choro group Toco Rio with guitarist Jeff Binder, and percussionist Ben Hogan. An avid improvisor, Linda performs, and records freely improvised music on the viola d’amore, and waterphone in the duo PaVda with renowned musician, artist, and instrument maker Hal Rammel, and plays electric and acoustic violin with area experimental music groups, including Seed Sounds with multi-instrumentalist Rick Ollman and percussionist Paul Westfahl which held a monthly performance residency featuring guest artists at Woodland Pattern Book Center in Milwaukee for nearly five years.

In recent years she has performed on classical mandolin playing Otello with the Chicago Symphony at Symphony Hall in Chicago and NYC’s Carnegie Hall under Riccardo Muti, Mahler’s Song of the Earth with the Milwaukee Symphony under Asher Fisch, and Mahler’s 8th Symphony with the Grant Park Symphony led by Carlos Kalmer, as well as performing chamber music at the Metropolitan Art Museum and Barge Music in NYC. She directed the Milwaukee Mandolin Orchestra, the nation’s oldest fretted instrument group for six years, and premiered contemporary music with the Milwaukee based ensemble Present Music. After violin playing for several years in Nebraska with the Omaha Symphony, Lincoln Symphony, and Nebraska Chamber Orchestra, she moved to NYC where she studied violin with Todd Phillips of the Orion String Quartet and performed regularly with several orchestras and opera companies, including Brooklyn Lyric Opera, Bronx Symphony, the Bronx Opera Company, and the Westchester Symphony. She continues to play classical violin with chamber groups, and orchestras in Milwaukee, including the Festival City Symphony and wedding and events quartets.