 Dutch-American soprano Katharine Dain holds degrees from Harvard University (Boston), Guildhall (London) and Mannes (New York) and currently lives in Rotterdam. She's a musician of insatiable curiosity and unusual imagination, active in opera, orchestral repertoire, oratorio, and chamber music in Europe and North America. After taking the top prize in the 2017 Clermont-Ferrand Competition (in which Diapason called her a “revelation”), Dain debuted as Konstanze in a production of Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
Career highlights
Her debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, in the world premiere of "Notenkrakers' Notulen" by Bram Kortekaas. The intense cooperation with Tapiola Sinfonietta after her impressive interpretation of Kaija Saariaho’s Emilie Suite which led to Katharine Dain's Artist Residence at Tapiola Sinfonietta throughout season 2022/2023”. Also noteworthy the invitation by the NationalOpera Amsterdam and its Opera Forward Festival to participate in the world premiere of I missed you forever, conceived by Manoj Kamps, Lisenka Heijboer Castañón (2022) ; the invitations by the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra also this season 23/24 and her debut with the Arcangelo Ensemble in works by Scarlatti and Haendel (at Musis Arnhem and the Paul Klee Zentrum in Bern) as with the by Teodor Currentzis founded chamber ensemble Utopia at the Vienna Konzerthaus in works by Debussy.
Always Mozart
Whether it turns on singing his breathtaking concert arias, masses, songs or his ferocious opera heroins, Katharine Dain masters them all. She got lavish praise for her debut as Konstanze performed in various French opera houses under Antony Hermus and as Donna Anna (Don Giovanni) in the acclaimed semi-staged production of the Orchestra of the 18th Century (on tour in the Netherlands and Belgium). All eyes are now focused on her debut as Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte) on a large tour again with Orchestra of the 18th century, now under the baton of Manoj Kamps.
Virtuoso intimacy
Katharine Dain also makes the difference as a Lied-interpreter. Recent recitals, amongst others at renowned halls as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, De Doelen and the Concertgebouw Brugge with her chamber music partner pianist Sam Armstrong, were sublime moments. The way the duo caught the (little) drama in each of the songs and brought them to life using an unexhaustible range of colors, is just pure art.
The artists debuted with the Dutch National Opera in Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus, a co-productionof its Talent Development Programme and the experimental company Silbersee. Since then, she has performed numerouscontemporary scores with Dutch ensembles including Asko|Schönberg, LUDWIG, the New European Ensemble, the Nieuw Ensemble, and the Ragazze Quartet. Further more she appeared in Paris (Philharmonie), Brussels (La Monnaie), and the Aldeburgh Festival in ENOA’s widely acclaimed original production Be With Me Now (co-mounted by the Festival Aix-en-Provence, the Dutch National Opera, and six other European presenters), in which her rendition of Anne Trulove’s aria from Stravinsky’s Rake’s Progress was praised by Arts Desk as “a better performance than any I’ve heard in the opera house.”
She stepped out as soprano soloist in Luigi Nono’s oratorio Il Canto Sospeso at the Holland Festival under Ingo Metzmacher, which led to an invitation from the Teatro Comunale di Bologna to perform the same piece under Roberto Abbado. She has also been called in at the last minute for performances at Ireland’s West Cork Chamber Music Festival (“singing as though the music had been written just for her,” said the Irish Times), a solo recital of Strauss, Marx, and Korngold lieder in the Concertgebouw Kleine Zaal (called “a miracle” by Place de l’Opera), Carmina Burana at the Concertgebouw’s Robeco Summer Nights series, and for the world premiere of an oratorio by Dutch composer Jan van de Putte with Asko|Schönberg and Cappella Amsterdam under Reinbert de Leeuw - a performance that was broadcast live on Dutch Radio 4 from the Concertgebouw’s Zaterdagmatinee series and later released commercially on Etcetera Records.
D i s c o g r a p h y
Save the date ! release on 17 november 2023 of "FORGET THE NIGHT", the 2de cd-recording on the label "7 Mountain records". Portfolio >>> FORGET THE NIGHT <<<
EXISTING RECORDINGS
CD > "O schöne Nacht", the debut cd-recording released in 2018, of the Damask Vocal Quartet, of which Katharine Dain is one of the co-founders. This remarkable cd won France’s prestigious Prix-Choc awarded by Classica.
CD > “Regards sur l’infini”, the artist's most recent recording (released this Autumn 2020) proposes a selection of songs by Saariaho, Dutilleux, Debussy, Delbos and Messiaen which she recorded together with her musical partner Sam Armstrong for the label "7 Mountain records". A recording awarded by the EDISON AWARD 2021 FOR BEST DEBUT.
CD > "Notenkrakers' Notulen", by Bram Kortekaas' released on the Horizon-label of the Royal Concertgebouw Label and on Warner classics (Erato).
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cv-update, season 2023-2024 : please contact the agency to get the most recent biographical details of the artist. |
