Katharine Dain, Soprano

Biography

Soprano Katharine Dain has been praised by the New York Times for her "rich tone," "deep emotion," and "lovely, passionate" performances. Her opera credits include Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), the title role of Cavalli’s La Calisto, and various premieres of contemporary operas. She also has extensive experience in oratorio and concert music from all periods, with a particular affinity for the music of Bach, Handel, Monteverdi, Purcell, Mozart, and the contemporary repertoire. An avid recitalist and an active collaborator with pianists Renate Rohlfing and Sam Armstrong, she has often championed little-known songs of the twentieth century, from Debussy rarities to songs of Szymanowski, Messiaen, Medtner, and many contemporary composers, including especially works of John Harbison and Christopher Berg. She has performed with Ash Lawn Opera (where she was a 2010 Young Artist), Gotham Chamber Opera, Alexandria Symphony, Ravinia Festival (where she was a 2009 Steans Fellow), Amherst Early Music Festival, Collegiate Chorale, Mark Morris Dance Group, New York City Ballet, Joy in Singing, Talea Ensemble, New York Miniaturist Ensemble, Trinity Wall Street, New England Baroque Soloists, and the New York Festival of Song in venues including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. She has co-founded two critically acclaimed chamber groups in New York: Callisto Ascending, a period-instrument ensemble, and Lunatics at Large, a contemporary chamber group lauded as “young, energetic and highly polished” by senior Times critic Allan Kozinn. About her performance in Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire, he said, "Katharine Dain, the ensemble’s engaging soprano, gave as graceful, and as intense, a performance of Schoenberg’s stylized vocal line as you could want. She moved easily between its slides, whispers and more straightforward expressivity."

Katharine is a recipient of the 2011 Marc and Eva Stern fellowship at SongFest at Pepperdine in Malibu, California. There she will work with Graham Johnson, Martin Katz, Roger Vignoles, Margo Garrett, John Musto, Amy Burton, Libby Larsen, and Jake Heggie, among others. She holds degrees from Harvard University, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and Mannes College of Music.

(from katharinedain.com)