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Pascale Montauban, Ariën Artists
arien@proximus.be
+32 93303990

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Katharine Dain
katharine.dain@gmail.com
+31 681381632

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My cool new jacket needs a long soak and block, a My cool new jacket needs a long soak and block, a zipper, and some photos in daylight, but I'm already calling her a win. Adapted from Nexxus by Natasja Hornby of @moonstruck_knits whose summer release I'm currently testing, lucky me.

I've been jealous of the Passions y'all are singing and playing. I miss Bach and I wish I got to sing him more nowadays. It would be a balm in this insane time. My hope for humanity (against tech slop and death-cult governments) and individual relationships (against everyone's exhaustion and distraction and withdrawal) is very low.

So I've been plugging away on stuff that needs a lot of time.

The pictured door is one of three matching 1930s ones I've slowly massaged back to bare-ish wood with a heat gun, scraper, chisel and sander (I am sore and they're not done). The house has had surgery--stairs, ceilings, walls; it's still a work in progress and will always be, as long as Etienne the house guru sticks around and accepts our amateur contributions. I've been knitting, trying to wrap my head around sweater grading. I've been singing (Brahms and Clara Schumann), thinking a lot about music and what I want to sing in a few months or a year or two (Claire Delbos, Crumb and Ravel and George Walker), and reading a lot of @nifmuhammad and Aracelis Girmay. I've been travel-planning for work, for dreams that might turn into work, and for friends and family. I've cooked in a kitchen that was mostly taped off, and I've cleaned floors of wood shavings and drywall dust countless times. I've been thinking about impact, I've been encouraged at some moments and paralyzed with helpless rage at others, I've voted, I've written to senators, I've given insulin shots to a diabetic cat. There's been yoga and coffee--not zen influencer shit, but sweaty and confronting. Sometimes I've felt very connected to people and other times excruciatingly lonely.

There are no after pictures. Nothing is finished, not even this sweater. But the pink was a gift from Yasmin, the white from my mom. Etienne has these contemplative house moments that I can't resist snapping. The trees are fuzzed in neon lime. Many hands made everything you see, slowly.
I just spent five days in Nuremberg, Germany, perf I just spent five days in Nuremberg, Germany, performing Haydn's Schöpfung (Creation) for the first time with the Nürnberg Symphoniker led by Jonathan Darlington, tenor Josh Lovell, baritone Jonathan Michie, and a combination of three choirs from the city.

It was SO much fun to sing this piece at last. Haydn had a blast telling the Biblical Creation story in riotous harmonic and timbral color, full of childlike wonder at the majesty of every new part of the universe to be unveiled: light, seas and land, plants, animals (the whales and worms are hilarious), and humans. Adam and Eve have some especially wild and beautiful music at the end--first in praise of their Creator, then about their (almost raunchy! Haydn!!) discovery of each other. 

The audio here is a rehearsal clip from my 2nd-act aria, in which all the newly-made birds--eagle, lark, a pair of doves, a nightingale--sing fierce and twiddly songs together. Don't the winds sound amazing?!

My hotel overlooked a big park, and I could hear birdsong often, including a cooing Taubenpaar. Walking through the park to our first rehearsal, I learned it had been a Nazi rallying ground before WWII with space for thousands of people. Ghostly plaques show grainy photos of flag-decked structures and massive crowds--along with explanations about how the area was repurposed after the war. The park feels very strange now: huge and mostly empty apart from the birds, some trees and bushes just starting to bloom, a few people walking their dogs, and a surreal, empty Nazi monument--now made into a memorial to the victims of state terror in the 1930s and 40s. 

(continued in the comments)
Smiles all around after wrapping Saskia Venegas's Smiles all around after wrapping Saskia Venegas's "Sortzain."

We--Katharine Dain & Ragazze Quartet--are excited to be recording several works from the ongoing commissioning project "They Have Waited Long Enough," brainchild of Tamar Brüggemann and made possible by Festival Wonderfeel. These pieces for singer, string quartet and one obbligato instrument (all by female composers) tell stories of women from myth and history in a very first-person, often revisionist way. The texts and music are very individual and SO good, and the stories speak strongly as a series of mini-operas.

Produced by Jared Sacks, the album will be released later this year on Channel Classics Records, yay! It will feature:

Medea (Annelies van Parys & Gaea Schoeters), with Anna voor de Wind on clarinet

Never Belonged (Aftab Darvishi & Gaea Schoeters after Madeleine Miller), with Raphaella Danksagmüller on duduk

My Words are Swallows (Aida Shirazi & Ece Temelkuran), with Elif Canfeza Gündüz on kemenche

Penelope (Calliope Tsoupaki & Gaea Schoeters after Homer), with Osama Abdulrasol on qanun

Sortzain (Saskia Venegas & Natalie Haynes), with Marianna Soroka & Agata Kruszewska on percussion, including the utterly cool Basque instrument txalaparta--pictured here!
Analog winter. London, Antwerp, Chapel Hill, Minne Analog winter.
London, Antwerp, Chapel Hill, Minneapolis, Monterey, Rotterdam.
Many people I love (and many more not pictured from these trips).

Kodak Tri-X (I think my favorite film) and Ilford HP5+ (one roll that went through about six airport security scanners, and I'm relieved it looks like anything at all).
Papa's Leica M2--I was experimenting with switching between the 50mm lens and the 35mm; I think I need to stick with the 35 and get really comfy with it, because technically it is pristine.
Developed at home over the kitchen sink.

The world is so intensely distressing right now, but I am still glad to be here.
I came to Hidden Valley in Carmel Valley, Californ I came to Hidden Valley in Carmel Valley, California for a Songfest intensive week many years ago. At a moment when I was just finding my feet professionally, I coached Brahms and Schubert and Fauré and Strauss with Graham Johnson, Sir Thomas Allen, and Susanne Mentzer, among others--met wonderful people I'm still in touch with--and was given advice that unlocked something crucial in me and let me see writing as a parallel practice to singing.

I'll never forget that Sir Tom (who later helped me hugely with Mozart) said he recognized immediately that I was someone who really did the work.

Peter Meckel, mensch and impresario, invited me back this winter for a little program with @bengulleythinks and @inesirawati (at the piano). We pulled out all the Puccini stops (how many high C's can one soprano and one tenor fit into 30 minutes?), but since I know this beautiful place first from song and it's always what I'll associate with it, here's a clip from the one song Ines and I did (crooning into a handheld mic this time 🙃), a favorite since I was a teenager.

Peter started this arts center in the 1960s. The list of legends who have taught and studied here in every artistic discipline is breathtaking. But more than the glittery names, it's the sense of generosity and openness that is most inspiring there, in no one more than Peter himself, who believes wholeheartedly that music can get us through this awful time.

I don't take for granted the gift of being among people who "do the work" (music and many other essential kinds) in the most sincere and comprehensive way, and to look forward to helping broaden the tent however we can--at a moment when so many precious things in the US are under threat.
My first blog post in almost a year: on fascism, F My first blog post in almost a year: on fascism, Figaro, Barzakh, bots, and what any of our effort might be worth. I didn't know if I would manage to write this, but it's been taking up so much brain space all year, and longer, that I had to try. You might recognize yourself in here a little if we've talked about substantive things lately ("hovering around as a vibe in the places where our souls overlap," as a dear friend said after reading it)--if you think you do, you're right.

In short: the Countess made the best move available by forgiving the Count; we have more options now than she did, and can do more to hold terrible men to account; and let's not lose our humanity along the way or silence ourselves pre-emptively, when that's the biggest gift we could give the murderous fuckers.

Link in bio.

The selfie is from the spring on Ilford Delta 3200 and the whole roll was just so grainy and almost unusable, but I liked this one.
Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Antwerp. Barzakh, by Osam Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Antwerp.
Barzakh, by Osama Abdulrasol, Thomas Bellinck, and writers who are mostly still incarcerated in the Belgian prison system.
Sometime last year, without even noticing, I slipp Sometime last year, without even noticing, I slipped past the milestone moment when Rotterdam became the place I'd lived longest. 
This city is so fucking magical, and it's still surprising me.
A bit of the very sexy song Placet futile by Ravel A bit of the very sexy song Placet futile by Ravel, in a luxury (/inspiring) rehearsal location with a Steinway D which makes this music sound 💃🤩💅

We're doing a recital tomorrow (16 November) of super gorgeous music that we've never performed together: George Crumb Apparition, Schubert Einsamkeit D620, and some sumptuous Ravel including the Mallarmé songs.

4:30 pm in De Paulus Oegstgeest, near Leiden. 
#ravel #chambermusic #soprano #piano
The Mood: before and after our first complete run The Mood: before and after our first complete run of George Crumb's astonishing Apparition for soprano and piano.
Omg!! This piece!! It's been in my mind and heart for literally 20 years. It's such an uphill climb--technically of course, but also in conception, imagination, courage, and time required to prepare--that I didn't know if I'd ever get to perform all of it.
But WE WILL, along with some stunning Ravel (Mallarmé + a few unknowns) and Schubert (the big Einsamkeit) in De Paulus Oegstgeest. Nov 16th at 4:30 pm. Come one, come all. If you don't know the Crumb, you are in for a discovery.
I *probably* won't collapse on the ground when it's done, like I just did, but you never know.
Le Nozze di Figaro, autumn 2025, analog edition. Le Nozze di Figaro, autumn 2025, analog edition.

Lucky me to sing my first Countess on tour with the Orchestra of the 18th Century and a very wonderful cast: Nikki Treurniet, James Newby, James Atkinson, Maria Warenberg, Esther Kuiper, Sharon Tadmor, Michal Karski, Marcel Reijans, Nuria Kouwenhoven; directed by Jorinde Keesmaat, conducted by Benjy Wenzelberg (who also just served a star turn by singing Cherubino from the podium, omg!). The team is much bigger than this--so many creative contributors (including our fabulous chorus) and people working tirelessly behind the scenes. Opera is such a colossal undertaking, and even more so when it's a one-off, not connected to one set theater; so, a big thanks to everyone who's worked on it and made it happen. Special mentions to @adrianar__ @rosalie_k_ @ingejongerman and @lida_hair_makeup for keeping every show running smoothly, solving problem after problem and being the loveliest presences backstage.

One more show tomorrow night in The Hague.

I didn't carry a camera most of the time, because the work was hard, and I thought all the spaces would be too dark--but the production, orchestra, and @concertgebouw and @tivolivredenburg look pretty wonderful on film, I think.
Shot with Papa's Leica M2 on Cinestil 800T, and developed by @cameralisatie as always.
Contessa and mini-Contessa reporting for duty. N Contessa and mini-Contessa reporting for duty. 

Nozze di Figaro dress rehearsal tonight with the @orchestra18c -- who always make me feel like I've died and gone to heaven. I would sing Mozart any day, anywhere... but what a total dream to debut this iconic role with this orchestra, soulmates in this rep -- and with lovely friends old and new, incl @bpwenzmusic conducting. The colorful production is by @jorindekeesmaat and my totally fun doll costume by @sanneoostervink.

Come hear us starting Monday night in Amsterdam, until Nov 2nd.

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