Soprano Katharine Dain performs opera, song, chamber music, orchestral repertoire, and oratorio on international stages. She is also a writer, a curator of unusual programs, and a probing collaborator on artistic projects of many kinds.
Her album Regards sur l’Infini (Messiaen, Delbos, Debussy, Dutilleux, and Saariaho) with pianist Sam Armstrong won the 2021 Edison Klassiek Award for Best Debut and was lavishly praised in the press: “fearless … beautifully controlled … exquisite” (Gramophone); “a stunning album … ecstatic pianism, stratospheric outbursts, sultry sighs and pure beauty … breathtaking” (NRC). The duo’s second album together, Forget This Night, featured works of Lili Boulanger, Karol Szymanowski, and Grażyna Bacewicz and was even more widely acclaimed. BBC Music Magazine named it CD of the Month in its category and called it “altogether a remarkable release: beautiful, intelligent and utterly heartfelt”.
Highlights of recent seasons include being named 2022-23 Artist-in-Residence with Finland’s Tapiola Sinfonietta; song recitals in Concertgebouw Amsterdam, De Doelen Rotterdam, and Concertgebouw Brugge; Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte (Fiordiligi), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Konstanze) and Don Giovanni (Donna Anna) in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Hungary, and Ecuador; appearances with the Dutch National Opera, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Orchestra of the 18th Century, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, and BBC Scottish and Welsh Symphony Orchestras; and chamber music at numerous festivals throughout Europe and North America.
BARZAKH (world premiere)
an opera by composer Osama Abdulrasol and librettist/director Thomas Bellinck
in collaboration with writers incarcerated in the Belgian prison system
Conductor: Zoe Zeniodi
Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Ghent, Belgium
Schütz: Christmas Story
with Arcangelo
led by Jonathan Cohen
de Singel, Antwerp, Belgium
Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge, UK
Wigmore Hall, London, UK
Mozart: concert arias “Alcandro, lo confesso” and “Ch’io mi scordi di te”
with the Orchestra of the 18th Century
Conductor: Jakob Lehmann
Pianist: Dmitry Ablogin
Den Bosch, Utrecht, & Arnhem, the Netherlands
Just after noon on November 6th, 2024, I beeped myself into the Ghent opera house and trudged up a flight of stairs with my head lowered, trying to hide my red eyes and puffy face. The previous day’s piano dress rehearsal had gone very well. Later, we’d had a farewell dinner for Amandine...
Sam and I couldn’t have asked for a more enthusiastic response to our second album together, Forget This Night. Two and a half years after first performing Lili Boulanger’s cycle Clairières dans le ciel together and knowing instantly that we had to record it, we were delighted that so m...
Hi from my couch (mustard-yellow). No soprano glamor here: I’m wearing an oversized cabled sweater (the color of late summer sunlight) I knitted years ago, candy-cane-patterned socks a friend gave me as a joke, and slippers (caramel) I bought on a blustery day in December between rehearsals. I’m...
© Katharine Dain 2022