Kathryn McCusker studied for her Bachelor of Music degree at the West Australian Conservatorium of Music. She has been the winner of the ABC Young Performers’ Award and the Remy Martin Opera Australia Award.

As a principal soprano with Opera Australia (1994-99), her roles included Pamina (The Magic Flute), Ilia (Idomeneo), Lauretta (Gianni Schicchi), Marzelline (Fidelio), Susanna (The Marriage of Figaro), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), the title role in Iphigénie en Tauride and Tytania (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, performed at the 1994 Edinburgh Festival). She also performed the roles of Romilda (Xerxes, Victoria State Opera) and The Countess (The Marriage of Figaro, West Australian Opera).

Winner of Opera Foundation Australia’s 1999 Vienna State Opera Award, she spent four months working as a company principal with the Vienna State Opera. In early 2000 she appeared as Antonia (The Tales of Hoffmann) for Opéra de Massy.

Now based in London, engagements have included Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni, Holland Park Opera and Glyndebourne Festival Opera), Tirsi (Handel’s Clori, Tirsi e Fileno, Covent Garden Festival), Isotta (Die schweigsame Frau) and Rosalia (Rossini’s L’equivoco stravagante) for Garsington Opera and Ginevra (Ariodante, Freiburg Opera). In the 2001/02 season, covering the role of Ginevra for English National Opera, she appeared in the final performance and was immediately invited to work on a new opera by Ian Wilson for the ENO Studio. Other contemporary works include the lead role in Rendezvous by Australian composer Lindsay Vickery and Marie de Nostradame in Nostradamus for West Australian Opera.

Kathryn has appeared with the Sydney, Melbourne and West Australian Symphony Orchestras. UK concert performances have included Messiah, Handel’s Belshazzar at the Dartington International Summer School, Handel arias with the London Chamber Orchestra and Handel’s Dixit Dominus and Vivaldi’s Magnificat in Bath Abbey.

Kathryn performed the role of Iphise in Dardanus (2005) for Pinchgut.

This bio taken from the last program in which Kathryn appeared.