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The American mezzo-soprano, Kate Maroney, holds degrees in music performance from SUNY Purchase as well as the Yale School of Music, and is a member of AGMA. She completed her doctorate at the Eastman School of Music in 2010 and moved to New York City, where she has quickly established a dynamic performance schedule in opera, early music, and oratorio. She was a 2013 Finalist in the Oratorio Society of New York's Lyndon Woodside Soloist Competition where she earned the William G. Blair Award for excellence in oratorio singing.
Kate Maroney is recognized for her elegant and versatile singing in oratorio and opera spanning from the Renaissance to works by contemporary composers. She debuted as a soloist in G.F. Handel's Dixit Dominus under Craig Arnold at Carnegie Hall and Chicago’s Orchestra Hall. She is a regular member of many New York-based ensembles, including Bach Vespers at Holy Trinity (Director: Rick Erickson), where she frequently appears as alto soloist including J.S. Bach's Cantatas BWV 80, BWV 106, BWV 42, BWV 33, BWV 134, and the Magnificat (BWV 243), and Easter Oratorio (BWV 249), as well as Georg Philipp Telemann's Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, George Frideric Handel's Brockes Passion, HWV 48, and Johannes Brahms' Liebeslieder Waltzes. In 2013-2014 season, she appeared and recorded as a guest soloist with Anonymous 4 and The Bangor Symphony (Christopher Tin’s Sireines), and made debut appearances with a many groups spanning a wide array of styles including Princeton Pro Musica (Alto soloist in G.F. Handel's Israel in Egypt), Sacred Music in a Sacred Space and Bach Collegium San Diego (Director: Ruben Valenzuela) (Alto soloist in G.F. Handel's Messiah), Bard Music Festival (Soloist in Schubert’s Die Verschworenen), String Orchestra of Brooklyn (Jacob Cooper's Stabat Mater), at the MATA Festival with Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble (Mezzo soloist in Joseph Sanz’ King Lear), and at (le) Poisson Rouge and the Look and Listen Festival with Andrew McKenna Lee's group, The Knells, which she has recently joined as a regular member. She is a founding member of New York's Polydora Ensemble which specializes in chamber repertoire for vocal quartet and piano, spanning 19th-century German repertoire to contemporary works. She has performed as alto soloist with the Mark Morris Dance Group under Mark Morris conducting (Antonio Vivaldi's Gloria and J.S. Bach's Jesu, meine Freude BWV 227) and premiered reconstructed J.S. Bach's BWV 216, Der Pleisse und Neisse in a concert presented by the Berkshire Bach Society under the direction of harpsichordist Kenneth Cooper. Other recent concert and oratorio soloist appearances include with Vox Vocal Ensemble (The Guggenheim under George Steel), the New York Choral Society (L.v. Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 under Malcolm Merriweather and Felix Mendelssohn's Elijah under Julian Wachner), the Fairfield County Chorale (W.A. Mozart's Requiem under Christine Howlett), the Master Singers of Westchester (Haydn's Lord Nelson Mass and W.A. Mozart's Vesperae de Dominica in 2012 and J.S. Bach's B-Minor Mass (BWV 232) in 2014), Monmouth Civic Chorus and Orchestra (G.F. Handel's Messiah and A. Vivaldi's Gloria under Ryan Brandau), and with the Choir of St. Luke in the Fields under David Shuler. (She can be heard as a soloist on “Christmas in Iberia: Music of the Spanish and Portuguese Renaissance” released on recording by St. Luke in the Fields in December 2012.) She has performed at the Oregon Bach Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival, with Musica Sacra, with the New York Choral Artists and New York Philharmonic Orchestra, with the American Classical Orchestra, the American Symphony Orchestra (Bard Summerscape Festival) and with TENET.
In addition to specializing in and advocating music from the 18th century and before, Kate Maroney is equally interested in performing contemporary music. She was featured over the past several seasons in in world tour of Robert Wilson and Philip Glass' Einstein on the Beach, which appeared on four continents and included the Latin American premiere of this seminal work of the 20th century. The tour presented Einstein on the Beach over 75 times to sold-out houses in Ann Arbor, Miami, Montpellier, France, Reggio Emilia, Italy, London, Toronto, Brooklyn (BAM), Berkeley, California, Mexico City, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Los Angeles Opera, and Paris. In 2013, she sang in Damon Albarn’s Monkey: Journey to the West at the David Koch Theatre during the Lincoln Center Festival with Ensemble Signal under Brad Lubman. She premiered Missy Mazzoli's Song From The Uproar at The Kitchen in 2012 and is heard on the premiere cast recording on New Amsterdam Records with the Now Ensemble under Stephen Osgood. With American Opera Projects,she has presented and recorded Semmelweis, an opera in progress, by Ray Lustig and Matt Gray. She performed and recorded with James Adler and oboist Virginia Brewer, Samuel Adler's 9/11 homage Reflections upon a September morn, which was released on Albany Records in 2011. An avid champion of new music, she has worked closely on premieres with composers Hannah Lash, Ted Hearne, Olga Bell, Lisa Bielawa, Harry Stafylakis, Chris Cerrone, Jacob Cooper, Michael Rose, Marie Incontrera, Andrew McKenna Lee, Ola Gjeilo, and Scott Wheeler in a variety of contexts and genres - spanning the gamut from choral to art song and exploring styles ranging from neoclassical to “prog-rock infused with Renaissance polyphony.” Upcoming projects include new pieces with Hannah Lash, Chris Cerrone, and new songs by Daron Hagen, presented by the Brooklyn Art Song Society.
Kate Maroney made her international debut in Milan in 2006, with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, under Giuseppe Grazzioli (Hermia in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night’ Dream). Other past projects include a recital programmed by Paul O'Dette and presented in Naples, Florida, in Rochester, New York, and at the Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) in June 2009. she returned to BEMF as a guest artist for a fringe recital with lutenist Dieter Hennings in 2011, and repeated the recital of Monteverdiand Strozzi as a guest artist with Kentucky Baroque in Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky. In Rochester, she appeared with Mercury Opera as the Mother in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors under Benton Hess and with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and Empire State Lyric Theater under Raffaele Ponti, singing Gianetta in L'elisir d’amore. Other opera credits include Dido with Eastman Collegium under Paul O'Dette; Prince Orlofsky, Carmen, and Dorabella at Quisisana on Lake Kezar, Maine; Hänsel with Purchase Opera; various roles at Yale Opera; and Desirée Armfeldt with the Eastman Opera Theater.
In the chamber chorale world, Kate Maroney has gained broad experience, performing frequently in Rochester with “Voices,” a professional chamber choir founded by Dr. William Weinert, singing as alto soloist in Heinrich Schütz' Musikalische Exequien, Charpentier's Reniement de St. Pierre, and a concert of the complete J.S. Bach's motets, to name just a few programs, among many Baroque and Renaissance gems. She is a member of the professional choral group Yale Choral Artists, under the direction of Jeffrey Douma, the all-treble Etherea Vocal Ensemble, under the direction of Derek Greten-Harrison, and Manhattan Concert Chorale under Craig Arnold. She has appeared the alto soloist in J.S. Bach's Minor Mass (BWV 232), W.A. Mozart's Vespers, G.F. Handel's Messiah and Dixit Dominus, and A. Vivaldi’s Gloria with the MasterWorks Chorale in Syracuse, Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky and Adams’ Grand Pianola Music with Musica Nova, under Brad Lubman. She can be heard with pianist Christina Yue performing Anton Webern's Dies ist ein Lied on W.W. Norton’s recorded musical anthology The Musician’s Guide to Theory and Analysis.
When not singing, Kate Maroney enjoys editing, pedagogy and musicology research work, and published an article entitled “Reflections from the Beach: Einstein on the Voice” in the November/December 2012 volume of NYSTA (New York Singing Teacher’s Association) journal VOICEPrints. It deals with the unique pedagogical demands of singing Einstein while on tour and what the process of learning and memorizing the piece was like. Kate has taught voice at Nassau Community College. She has freelanced at W.W. Norton under Maribeth Payne, where she helped to edit the 4th edition of Barbara Hanning’s Concise History of Western Music, the 6th edition of the Norton Anthology of Western Music, and Musician’s Guide to Fundamentals. She did independent editing work with Dr. Jeffrey Langford at Manhattan School of Music on his recently published Evenings at the Opera (Amadeus Press). Her 2009 lecture recital; "Proses lyriques of Claude Debussy: The Influence of the Symbolist Aesthetic and Evocation of the Senses through Poetic-Musical Implication", presented under the guidance of Dr. Marie Rolf with pianist Richard Masters, was a finalist for the Eastman D.M.A. Lecture Recital Prize. She resides in Brooklyn with her partner, multi-faceted musician, composer, and improvisor, Red Wierenga, and their two cats, Misha and Ayler. |
