Performance Experience
Praised by The Washington Post for her "sweetness of timbre and vocal power," Kate Vetter Cain has earned acclaim as a concert and operatic soloist with some of this country’s most beloved arts organizations, including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop, Washington Bach Consort under J. Reilly Lewis and Dana Marsh, Washington Ballet, Washington Concert Opera under Antony Walker, National Chamber Players under Leonard Slatkin, Folger Consort, Washington Ballet, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, ‘Rebel’ Baroque Ensemble, Caramoor Festival Opera, DC's In Series, Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music, Cleveland Art Song Festival, Brevard Music Festival, the Ash-Lawn Highland Festival, and Bowdoin Summer Music Festival.
After her 2003 debut with the Washington Bach Consort in a staged performance of Bach's "Peasant Cantata," Kate has become a regular collaborator with the group, singing an extensive range of secular and sacred cantatas, as well as large-scale works such as the Passions, Christmas Oratorio and B-minor Mass. Among many memorable concerts with the WBC, she especially enjoyed singing Jauchzet Gott, BWV 51, with J. Reilly Lewis at the keyboard on a program featuring Washington's top arts organizations in a welcome concert for the Obamas at DC's Harmon Hall. She has also appeared as a soloist in oratorios of Vivaldi, Mozart, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Bernstein, Bach, and Beethoven with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Masterworks Chorus and Orchestra, Washington Summer Sings!, Bach in Baltimore, New York's Trinity Church, Yale University Bach Society, and the Charlottesville Summer Chamber Symphony. Kate loves to collaborate with dance companies, performing as the soprano soloist at New York City Center and at the Vail International Dance Festival with renowned choreographer Christopher Wheeldon's company Morphoses, and again for two seasons as the soprano soloist with the Washington Ballet.
Kate has also performed leading roles Off-Broadway with The New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players. She debuted with Washington Concert Opera as Francisca in Donizetti's "Maria Padilla” under conductor Antony Walker, and with the Folger Consort as the Angel in “The Second Shepherd's Play,” in collaboration with the Folger Shakespeare Theatre. Other favorite stage works have included Bach’s “Coffee” and “Peasant” Cantatas with the Washington Bach Consort, Madame Herz in Mozart’s “The Impressario” with DC’s In Series, Titania in Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at Brevard Music Festival, and Papagena and Musetta at New York’s Caramoor Festival and Taconic Opera.
Kate is an avid song and chamber music recitalist, a former finalist in the Vocal Arts Society of Washington Discovery Series Competition, and a semi-finalist in the International Baroque Singing Competition of Chimay, Belgium. She performed New York solo recitals on the concert series of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, and on the Trinity Church "Concerts at One" series at historic St. Paul's Chapel. She performed in recital with pianist Tamara Sanikidze on the “Promising Artists of the 21st Century Series” in San José, Costa Rica, in a solo benefit recital for Lake George Opera, and with pianist Nino Sanikidze at the Cleveland Art Song Festival. Kate sang works of George Crumb, conducted by the composer, at the Gamper Festival of Contemporary Music, and performed the songs of such twentieth-century masters as Villa-lobos, Roussel, Halffter, Poulenc, Bergsma, Stravinsky and Schoenberg at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, with Virginia Bronze, and the Tanglewood Music Center. At Washington's Dacor House, she presented a program of Schubert, Strauss, and Dominick Argento for soprano, horn, clarinet, and piano.
Kate was born in Boston and grew up in Greenfield, Massachusetts. She received her training at Yale University (BA), Manhattan School of Music (MM), and the University of Maryland School of Music (DMA), as well as the Tanglewood Music Center Seminar for Singers. At Manhattan School, in addition to leading roles with the Opera Theater and Musical Theater Programs, she participated in a two-year intensive operatic performance program in Baroque style, led by conductor Will Crutchfield, focusing on the operatic works of G. F. Handel. This led directly to her Doctoral work at UMD in Baroque opera. At UMD, she stage-directed and sang the title role of Galatea in Handel's "Acis and Galatea," to the Polyphemus of legendary baritone, François Loup, stage-directed Vivaldi's Eurilla e Alcindo, and sang Poppea in Monteverdi's "L'incoronazione di Poppea" under director Leon Major and conductor Ken Slowik.