Born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Katherine Lerner Lee enjoys a varied career singing opera, art song, chamber music and new works. She was named a winner of the 2021 Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition, and, as a member of Bard’s Vocal Arts Program (VAP), has performed the roles of Leila in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe and Gold-Spur in Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen at the Fisher Center. She also appeared in Handel’s Messiah and participated in French and German cabaret evenings alongside her VAP colleagues.
Devoted to new and modern works, Ms. Lerner Lee sang the orchestral premiere of John Musto’s Shadow of the Blues under the baton of Colin Roshak with The Orchestra Now in March of 2023. While at Bard she recorded the title role in excerpts of an opera-in-progress on Clara Schumann by composer Kyle Gann, and premiered multiple works by student composers. Through a long-standing collaboration with Colin Roshak, she assisted in the founding of the Bard Sinfonietta Project, a new music ensemble fostering interdisciplinary collaboration. Through this initiative, she sang Berio’s Folk Songs, Kaija Saariaho’s Tempest Songbook, and performed the narrator in Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale.
In the greater Hudson Valley region, Ms. Lerner Lee has given recitals in Hyde Park with pianist Michael Skelly, and at the Red Hook Cultural Institution with collaborator Diana Borschcheva. Under the baton of David Smith, she performed the soprano solo in Fauré’s Requiem and Eve in Haydn’s Creation with the Broad Street Orchestra. In the summer of 2022 she was a part of the world premiere of The Final Veil, a movement chamber opera about the Holocaust, which ran at the Cell Theater in New York City.
Past appearances include her 2019 Carnegie Hall debut singing Stravinsky’s Les Noces with Oberlin College Choir, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, where she sang Harrison Birtwistle’s Entr’actes and Sappho Fragments with the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble. In 2017 Ms. Lerner Lee sang in the Bang on a Can Marathon Concert at the Brooklyn Museum, performing Louis Andriessen’s De Staat and the North American premiere of David Gordon’s No Anthem. Select operatic credits include Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, Flora in The Turn of the Screw, Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, and Clori in Cavalli’s L’egisto. When not performing, she enjoys teaching, drinking coffee, petting dogs, doing crosswords, and playing tennis.
More at katherinelernerlee.com.
Ms. Lee will perform with The Orchestra Now on May 14, 2023.
Bio: April 2023