BIOGRAPHY

American soprano Katharine Dain, praised by the Irish Times for “thrilling,” “heart-piercing” performances, is a concert and operatic singer in North America and Europe. Highlights of 2015-16 include a solo recital of Strauss, Marx, and Korngold in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw with pianist Reinild Mees, her debuts in Paris (Philharmonie), Brussels (La Monnaie), and the Aldeburgh Festival in ENOA’s Be With Me Now (a co-production of Festival Aix-en-Provence, the Dutch National Opera, and six other European presenters), a return to Ireland’s West Cork Chamber Music Festival, a last-minute replacement as soloist in the Concertgebouw Grote Zaal with Asko|Schönberg under Reinbert de Leeuw of an oratorio receiving its premiere, and her Italian debut in Luigi Nono Il Canto Sospeso with the Teatro Comunale di Bologna under the baton of Roberto Abbado. Her debut with the Dutch National Opera was in Claude Vivier Kopernikus (Coloratura Soprano), a production of its Talent Development Programme in 2014. Other opera appearances include Mozart Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), and Madame Herz (Der Schauspieldirektor), Donizetti Lucia di Lammermoor, the leads of Cavalli La Calisto (title role) and Giasone (Hypsipyle), and numerous contemporary operas, with companies such as Silbersee exVocaalLAB, Gotham Chamber Opera, Opera Company of Philadelphia, Operadagen Rotterdam, Opera by Request, Ash Lawn Opera, Opera Omnia, Capitol Opera Raleigh, Center for Contemporary Opera, and the Bard Music Festival.

Ms. Dain has appeared as oratorio soloist in Bach Mass is B minor, Matthäus-Passion, Weinachts-Oratorium and numerous cantatas, Handel Messiah, Dixit Dominus and Judas Maccabaeus, Mozart Requiem, Mass in C minor, Exsultate jubilate, Coronation Mass and Vesperae solennes de confessore, Haydn Lord Nelson Mass and Theresa Mass, Fauré Requiem, Orff Carmina Burana, and many other large-scale works. She has been a featured soloist with orchestras and choruses including the Südwestradiofunkorchester Freiburg & Baden-Baden, Asko|Schönberg Ensemble, Sinfonica di Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Cappella Amsterdam, Alexandria Symphony, Springfield Symphony, American Symphony Orchestra, Collegiate Chorale, Masterwork Chorale, Handel Choir of Baltimore, Choir of Trinity Wall Street, and Rebel Baroque Orchestra in venues including New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and Vienna’s Musikverein and Konzerthaus. She has also collaborated with the Mark Morris Dance Group (Purcell Dido and Aeneas, conducted by Morris) and New York City Ballet (a revival of the historic Jerome Robbins production of Stravinsky Les Noces).

A passionately committed chamber musician, recitalist, and advocate for contemporary repertoire, Ms. Dain has jumped in for several high-profile performances of obscure repertoire on one or two days’ notice, including the premiere of Jan van de Putte Insonia with Asko|Schönberg and Cappella Amsterdam under Reinbert de Leeuw (broadcast live from the Concertgebouw, 2016), Nono Il Canto Sospeso in the 2014 Holland Festival under Ingo Metzmacher, and John Tavener To a Child Dancing in the Wind at the 2014 West Cork Chamber Music Festival (singing, according to a glowing review in the Irish Times, “as if the music might have been written just for her”). She has performed with pianists including Julius Drake, Reinild Mees, Sam Armstrong, Tom Poster, Jonathan Ware, and Renate Rohlfing and has worked in masterclasses and private settings with, among others, Graham Johnson, Malcolm Martineau, Roger Vignoles, Matthias Goerne, Dawn Upshaw, Martin Katz, Margo Garrett, Paul Sperry, Lucy Shelton, Edda Moser, and Wolfgang Holzmair. She has collaborated with numerous chamber groups, including the Callino, Carducci, Momenta, Ragazze, and Van Brugh string quartets, Nieuw Ensemble Amsterdam, Talea Ensemble, Oerknal!, New York Miniaturist Ensemble, North Country Chamber Players, and several groups of which she was a co-founder: Damask Ensemble, an up-and-coming vocal quartet in the Netherlands, and Lunatics at Large, a New York new-music ensemble lauded as “young, energetic and finely polished” by the New York Times. She has also been featured in recital at the Carducci Festival, Ravinia Festival (Steans Fellow 2009), Bargemusic, New York Festival of Song, Joy in Singing’s composer series, and Songfest (Stern Fellow 2011). She is also committed to educational outreach via yearly United States recital tours with the Piatigorsky Foundation, whose mission is to bring live classical performances into settings (schools, community centers, retirement homes) that rarely if ever see them.

Originally from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Ms. Dain holds degrees from Harvard University, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and Mannes College of Music, and she currently lives in the Netherlands.

Biography last updated August 2016. Before reproducing, please email for the most current version of this biography or an edited version.