Phyllis Bryn-Julson is recognized as one of the most authoritative interpreters of vocal music of the 20th century. Born in North Dakota in 1945, she began studying the piano at age 3. She enrolled in Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn., studying piano, organ, voice and violin. She received an honorary doctorate from Concordia in 1995. After attending the Tanglewood Summer Music Festival, she transferred to Syracuse University, studying voice with Helen Boatwright, completing her BM and MM degrees. During these college years, she made her debut with the Boston Symphony in Boston; Providence, R.I.; and Carnegie Hall in New York. She has sung with this orchestra and the New York Philharmonic dozens of times.

Bryn-Julson collaborated with Pierre Boulez and the Ensemble Intercontemporaine for much of her career, taking her to numerous festivals in Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the former Soviet Union, and Japan. She has premiered works of many 20th-century composers, some of which were written for her. Included in this list are Boulez, Messiaen, Goehr, Kurtag, Holliger, Tavener, Rochberg, Del Tredici, Rorem, Carter, Babbitt, Birtwistle, Boone, Cage, Felciano, Wuorinen, Aperghis, and Penderecki.

Bryn-Julson gave performances of Kurtag's Kafka Fragments in New York at the Guggenheim Museum with Violaine Melançon, violinist. She took part in the Radical Past series in Los Angeles, giving four performances of the great works of Milton Babbitt, John Cage, Cathy Berberian, and Luciano Berio. She toured with the Peabody Trio throughout the United States and Canada, and recorded works of Samuel Adler for the Milken Foundation in Barcelona. She also toured with the Montreal Symphony, performing the award winning opera Il Prigioniero by Dallapiccola. Performances occurred at Carnegie Hall and in Montreal. Following this, she premiered the same work in Tokyo, where it was staged and televised. With Southwest Chamber Music Society, Bryn-Julson has performed and recorded the complete works of both Ernst Krenek and Mel Powell. In 2002, she premiered and recorded An American Decameron by Richard Felciano, commissioned by the Koussevitsky Foundation, and written for her and the Southwest Chamber Music Society.

Bryn-Julson has over 100 recordings to her credit, and her performance of Erwartung by Schönberg, with Simon Rattle conducting, won the 1995 best opera Gramophone Award. Her recording of the opera Il Prigioniero by Dallapiccola won the Prix du Monde. She has been nominated twice for Grammy awards; one for best opera recording (Erwartung), and best vocalist (Ligeti Vocal Works). She has received the Amphoion Award, The Dickinson College Arts Award, The Paul Hume Award, and the Catherine Filene Shouse Award. She was inducted into the Scandinavian-American Hall of Fame in 2000. She was the first musician to receive the United States--United Kingdom Bicentennial Exchange Arts Fellowship. She received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Syracuse University, the Peabody Conservatory's Excellence in Teaching Award, and the Peabody Student Council Award for outstanding contribution to the Peabody community.

Bryn-Julson appeared with every major European and North American symphony orchestras under many of the leading conductors such as Esa-Pekka Salonen, Simon Rattle, Pierre Boulez, Leonard Slatkin, Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado, Seiji Ozawa, Zubin Mehta, Gunther Schuller, and Erich Leinsdorf.

Bryn-Julson was a faculty member of the Peabody Conservatory from 1984 to 2017. She frequently performed with the Theater Chamber Players of the Kennedy Center and with her husband, organist Donald Sutherland.