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.
music in Covid times
Hi, friends. My work, like that of most performers, has been severely affected by Covid-19 since the spring of 2020. These difficult months have had one unexpected good result, however: an album project titled Regards sur l’Infini, recorded with pianist Sam Armstrong. Read more about the project and pre-order a copy here.
The official release date is 27 November, but excellent press is starting to roll in, and we’re thrilled with the response. From a review in MusicWeb International: “Beautifully recorded, exquisitely performed. … Katharine Dain is perfection itself. Her tone is light but not insubstantial, flexible, expressive and colourful, with a natural vibrato that you can listen to forever. Sam Armstrong’s accompaniment is sensitive and equally expressively communicative, an ideal mirror to Dain’s voice. … A superbly curated programme of French music. … This is the kind of recording that reminds us that there is not only beauty in melancholy, but also a wealth of inspiration.”
We were also profiled in Place de l’Opéra and and Opera Today, awarded CD of the Month from Opera Nederland, and received a four-star review in Trouw. Peter van der Lint says (translated from Dutch): “a palindromic program, then, and what a program! Dain herself wrote the outstanding notes, and you can hear in every song her unique understanding of this music. Armstrong is her equal partner in everything.”
If you listen, get in touch and let me know what you think! And stay safe, everyone. My performance calendar is a sketch of what might be able to happen this season, but keep an eye on current information from the venues if you’d like to hear a live performance, because everyone is still reacting quickly to changing circumstances. We’ll get through this.
—Katharine
music in Covid times
Hi, friends. My work, like that of most performers, has been severely affected by Covid-19 since the spring of 2020. These difficult months have had one unexpected good result, however: an album project titled Regards sur l’Infini, recorded with pianist Sam Armstrong. Read more about the project and pre-order a copy here.
The official release date is 27 November, but excellent press is starting to roll in, and we’re thrilled with the response. From a review in MusicWeb International: “Beautifully recorded, exquisitely performed. … Katharine Dain is perfection itself. Her tone is light but not insubstantial, flexible, expressive and colourful, with a natural vibrato that you can listen to forever. Sam Armstrong’s accompaniment is sensitive and equally expressively communicative, an ideal mirror to Dain’s voice. … A superbly curated programme of French music. … This is the kind of recording that reminds us that there is not only beauty in melancholy, but also a wealth of inspiration.”
We were also profiled in Place de l’Opéra and and Opera Today, awarded CD of the Month from Opera Nederland, and received a four-star review in Trouw. Peter van der Lint says (translated from Dutch): “a palindromic program, then, and what a program! Dain herself wrote the outstanding notes, and you can hear in every song her unique understanding of this music. Armstrong is her equal partner in everything.”
If you listen, get in touch and let me know what you think! And stay safe, everyone. My performance calendar is a sketch of what might be able to happen this season, but keep an eye on current information from the venues if you’d like to hear a live performance, because everyone is still reacting quickly to changing circumstances. We’ll get through this.
—Katharine
news
blog
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October 12, 2020I was shaken to learn last night that soprano and legendary teacher Ruth Falcon has died. I was lucky to study with Ruth at Mannes for three years. She was an exacting technician, a force of nature, someone who could be both boundlessly generous and terribly difficult. Although we haven't been close in many years, it's hard to believe she's gone. I remember our first lesson. I had been accepted to Mannes and was trying to... -
September 25, 2020Most of my concerts this spring, summer, and fall were cancelled. But not this one, which went off last week without a hitch, and thank goodness, because it was a complete pleasure from start to finish. Scroll down to listen to our Mahler and Schubert. Ludwig is a Dutch chamber orchestra that almost exclusively plays without conductor. (A notable exception is whenever they work with Barbara Hannigan, who sings and conducts; their 2018 album Crazy... -
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...
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