KATHRYN HEARDEN

Lyric soprano Kathryn Hearden completed a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at the Eastman School of Music, where she was a winner of the Concerto Competition and the Performer’s Certificate. Among the last students of the late renowned mezzo soprano, Jan DeGaetani, Miss Hearden has also studied with Chloe Owen, William Sharp, Masako Toribara and Carmen Pelton. A finalist in the 1992 Washington International Competition for Voice, Miss Hearden’s repertoire spans seven centuries and reflects her love of chamber music as well as oratorio and operatic literature. As an advocate of new music, Miss Hearden has premiered dozens of works, including those by composers Robert Morris, Ray Ricker, Judith Shatin, Kamran Ince and John Hilliard, and has served on the board of directors of the Capital Composers Alliance. She sings recent American works with The Contemporary Music Forum at the Corcoran Gallery.

Miss Hearden appears in recital throughout the mid-Atlantic region, notably at the National Gallery of Art, with gallery Music Director George Manos at the piano. She has also sung with the National Gallery Orchestra, with whom area audiences have heard her on the radio program, “Music in Washington,” as well as on National Public Radio. During recent concert seasons, Miss Hearden has sung with “The President’s Own” Chamber Orchestra of the United States Marine Band; first, in a rare performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s arrangement of his String Quartet No. 2, conducted by Col. Timothy Foley. She returned last season to sing with Col. Foley and the White House orchestra in “Knoxville: Summer of 1915” by Samuel Barber. Other performances in the region include oratorio, symphonic song and chamber works at the Kennedy Center, La Maison Francais (the French Embassy), The National Museum for Women in the Arts, and with the Alexandria Symphony, the Millbrook Orchestra, and Concert Artists of Baltimore. As an adjunct Professor of Voice at George Mason University, Dr. Hearden has appeared in numerous concert collaborations in the Center for the Arts, including a production of the Faure Requiem, with guest conductor Leonard Slatkin. Of her chamber music recital at the French Embassy, The Washington Post raved: “soprano Kathryn Hearden was an absolute knockout…her dramatic interpretation…could rival anything seen on the operatic stage. Hearden’s voice is a first-rate instrument and she used it to the fullest effect.” [Ravel, Chansons madecasses, et al.]

Dr. Hearden is an active adjudicator and member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Many of her students sing professionally across the U.S. and abroad in major oratorio, operatic and musical theater roles. While continuing to renew her own artistic study, Miss Hearden has performed in master classes with Elly Ameling, Hakan Hagegaard, and Gerard Souzay, and in the Joy of Singing recitals with tenor Paul Sperry at Lincoln Center.