Soprano Katharine Dain performs opera, chamber music, and oratorio throughout Europe and North America. Highlights of current and recent seasons include Konstanze (Mozart Die Entführung aus dem Serail) in the opera houses of Rouen, Avignon, Clermont-Ferrand, Reims, and Massy, Donna Anna (Mozart Don Giovanni) in Ecuador, Hungary, and on tour throughout the Netherlands and Belgium with the Orchestra of the 18th Century, and Cunégonde (Bernstein Candide) in Banff. On the concert platform, Katharine has recently performed works of Dutilleux and Berlioz with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ryan Bancroft, song cycles of Zemlinsky and Berg under Reinbert de Leeuw in Austria’s Osterfestival, and Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem with Cappella Amsterdam under Daniel Reuss.
Soprano Katharine Dain performs opera, chamber music, and oratorio throughout Europe and North America. Highlights of current and recent seasons include Konstanze (Mozart Die Entführung aus dem Serail) in the opera houses of Rouen, Avignon, Clermont-Ferrand, Reims, and Massy, Donna Anna (Mozart Don Giovanni) in Ecuador, Hungary, and on tour throughout the Netherlands and Belgium with the Orchestra of the 18th Century, and Cunégonde (Bernstein Candide) in Banff. On the concert platform, Katharine has recently performed works of Dutilleux and Berlioz with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ryan Bancroft, song cycles of Zemlinsky and Berg under Reinbert de Leeuw in Austria’s Osterfestival, and Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem with Cappella Amsterdam under Daniel Reuss.
Katharine Dain is the revelation of the evening. Her ample and silky voice, supple phrasing and warm timbre are apparent from her first aria. The young soprano marries dramatic power and enormous vocal agility without ever stepping outside of Mozart’s style.
ÔLYRIX
Mozart has unquestionably found in the beautiful American soprano Katharine Dain an ideal Konstanze. Fluent high range, expressive middle, virtuosity without excess, dramatic intelligence: her “Martern aller Arten” promises us a splendid heroine.
FORUM OPERA
A musician of unusual intelligence and fearlessness, Katharine is becoming particularly known for her work in 20th- and 21st-century repertoire. In early 2020, she was the featured soloist with the Nederlands Studenten Orkest under conductor Manoj Kamps in a touring program of Wagner, Stravinsky, and a newly-commissioned piece written for her by young Dutch composer Rick van Veldhuizen. She has co-founded several chamber groups, including Damask Vocal Quartet, whose first album of works by Brahms and contemporaries, O schöne Nacht, garnered universal acclaim in the press and won the French award the Choc de Classica.
A musician of unusual intelligence and fearlessness, Katharine is becoming particularly known for her work in 20th- and 21st-century repertoire. In early 2020, she was the featured soloist with the Nederlands Studenten Orkest under conductor Manoj Kamps in a touring program of Wagner, Stravinsky, and a newly-commissioned piece written for her by young Dutch composer Rick van Veldhuizen. She has co-founded several chamber groups, including Damask Vocal Quartet, whose first album of works by Brahms and contemporaries, O schöne Nacht, garnered universal acclaim in the press and won the French award the Choc de Classica.
a note about COVID, me, and the arts
Dear friends,
My work, like that of most performers, has been severely curtailed by Covid-19 since the spring of 2020.
I’ve kept busy in these unexpectedly slow months. Sam Armstrong, a brilliant pianist and treasured duo partner, decided to quarantine with me from March onward. We spent the lockdown making music, and this work will happily result in our first recording project as a duo: “Regards sur l’Infini,” a disc of French pieces including Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi, Debussy’s Proses lyriques, and songs by Claire Delbos, Henri Dutilleux, and Kaija Saariaho. The album will be released in late November 2020 on Dutch label 7 Mountain Records. Here is the project page, and here is a blog post I wrote about the process.
My performance calendar reflects my plans as of September 2020, but all dates should be considered provisional; please check with the venue before making plans to attend a live performance.
Stay safe, everyone.
—love from Katharine
a note about COVID, me, and the arts
Dear friends,
My work, like that of most performers, has been severely curtailed by Covid-19 since the spring of 2020.
I’ve kept busy in these unexpectedly slow months. Sam Armstrong, a brilliant pianist and treasured duo partner, decided to quarantine with me from March onward. We spent the lockdown making music, and this work will happily result in our first recording project as a duo: “Regards sur l’Infini,” a disc of French pieces including Messiaen’s Poèmes pour Mi, Debussy’s Proses lyriques, and songs by Claire Delbos, Henri Dutilleux, and Kaija Saariaho. The album will be released in late November 2020 on Dutch label 7 Mountain Records. Here is the project page, and here is a blog post I wrote about the process.
My performance calendar reflects my plans as of September 2020, but all dates should be considered provisional; please check with the venue before making plans to attend a live performance.
Stay safe, everyone.
—love from Katharine
news
blog
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July 24, 2020It's been a rocky few months for the performing arts, which makes it all the more strange and wonderful to announce my own news: Sam Armstrong and I are making an album. Sam and I been close friends and collaborators for a long time, but we've never recorded together. Now, finally, we're planning a disc of French songs, titled "Regards sur l'Infini" after a gorgeous early song by Dutilleux. The program is a compact, symmetrical... -
April 10, 2020In dem wogenden Schwall, in dem tönenden Schall, in des Welt-Atems wehendem All— ertrinken versinken— unbewusst höchste Lust! (In the welling waves, in the sounding swell, in the world-breath's infinite All— to drown to sink— unconscious highest bliss!) —Richard Wagner it is a necessity to have a plan, a manifesto, an alternative. it’s a question of life and death for our species. as a musician i feel i can suggest the musical poetic angle which is that after tragedies one has to invent a new world, knit it or embroider, make... -
February 14, 2020The world is a less vibrant place today. The last time I saw Reinbert was nearly a year ago, spring, a jump-in—Berg and Zemlinsky songs in gorgeous chamber arrangements he had made. I had enough notice that I could go to his house in Amsterdam on a sunny April day to go through the music. I had been cramming at home and was quaking in my boots when I arrived, because I was barely past...
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