Kathryn Mueller

Supports: Poor People's Campaign (combating systemic racism, poverty, and ecological devastation)

Soprano Kathryn Mueller sings a wide range of repertoire from period baroque performances to world premieres of new works, and has been a soloist with the LA Chamber Orchestra, American Bach Soloists, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica, Phoenix Symphony, New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Winston-Salem Symphony, and Tucson Symphony Orchestra.

Kathryn received a GRAMMY nomination for her solo work on True Concord’s album Far in the Heavens. She has also recorded two GRAMMY-nominated albums with Seraphic Fire, and is featured as a soloist on recordings by New Trinity Baroque, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Tucson Chamber Artists, and Seraphic Fire, including Seraphic Fire’s best-selling Monteverdi Vespers of 1610, which reached the top of the iTunes classical chart.

Kathryn was a fellow in the Adams Vocal Master Class at the Carmel Bach Festival. She was also a finalist in the Oratorio Society of New York's Solo Competition two years in a row, winning the Frances MacEachron Award in 2013. Kathryn's soprano duo Les Sirènes was one of 6 finalist groups in Early Music America's 2012 Baroque Performance Competition.

Kathryn gave the world premiere of Ananda Sukarlan’s song cycle Love and Variations, commissioned for her vocal-piano ensemble, the Swara Sonora Trio. The Swara Sonora Trio followed that successful premiere with a 3-week benefit tour across Indonesia, raising funds for UNICEF’s Indonesia Country Office. Kathryn has an upcoming commission project, in collaboration with Santa Fe Pro Musica, for USA Fellow Reena Esmail to compose a work for soprano and orchestra based on Chickasaw writer Linda Hogan’s powerful poem “A History of Red.”

Kathryn was born in San Francisco, and began her musical studies on the edge of Arizona’s White Mountain Apache Reservation. Her first solo performance was “Away in a Manger” in church, at age seven. She got her first pro gig – a section leader position at a church in Providence – during high school in Rhode Island, continued her vocal studies as an undergraduate at Brown University, and then earned a Masters degree in vocal performance from the University of Arizona. Kathryn lives in Raleigh, NC with her husband (NCSU choir director Nathan Leaf), two small children, and cattle dog.