Kathryn Whitney

Kathryn Whitney undertook her early musical training at the Victoria Conservatory of Music in Canada and she holds an undergraduate degree in Music and German from the University of Toronto. While reading for her first degree, she regularly travelled to New York for singing lessons with the vocal pedagogue and author Cornelius Reid. She also undertook an intensive residential period of study in Cornelius’ studio in New York in her final year as a Toronto undergraduate.

Kathryn came to the UK to pursue postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford. She regularly appeared in recital with the pianist Philip Bullock and she performed in a wide range of works with the numerous choirs, orchestras and opera companies that proliferate in and around Oxford and London. During this time, she also began singing studies in London with Emma Kirkby, with whom she performed Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater in 1998.

Upon completing her doctorate, Kathryn won two awards for advanced singing study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama: a Postgraduate Arts Award from the Worshipful Company of Drapers of London and a Margaret Pollock Scholarship from Somerville College, Oxford.

At Guildhall, Kathryn began private singing tuition with Professor Susan McCulloch and undertook intensive study of the French, English and (especially) German recital repertoire. She also took specialist studies in the performance practice of early music, in particular the Italian coloratura operatic repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries.