Ragazze Quartet & Katharine Dain
Biographie Ragazze Quartet & Katharine Dain
Katharine Dain
performs opera, chamber music, and orchestral repertoire on international stages and is a probing curator and collaborator on many kinds of creative projects. Highlights of recent seasons include being named Artist-in-Residence with Finland’s Tapiola Sinfonietta; ongoing collaborations with the Orchestra of the 18th Century and Netherlands Chamber Orchestra; Mozart Don Giovanni (Donna Anna), Die Entführung aus dem Serail (Konstanze), and Così fan tutte (Fiordiligi) in the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Hungary, and Ecuador; and projects with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, and BBC Scottish and Welsh Symphony Orchestras. Dain’s recent album Regards sur l’Infini with pianist Sam Armstrong, featuring Messiaen Poèmes pour Mi and songs by Debussy, Delbos, Dutilleux, and Saariaho, won the 2021 Edison Klassiek for Best Debut and was widely praised in the press (“an extraordinarily polished and thought-through disc … glowing” —The Guardian).
A passionate advocate for music of the 20th and 21st centuries, Dain first appeared with the Dutch National Opera in Claude Vivier Kopernikus and recently was both singer and co-creator on the new production I Have Missed You Forever for the same company and Amsterdam’s Opera Forward Festival. Her repertoire interests in song and chamber music are especially broad, from Baroque to the present day (including many pieces commissioned for her), and she is a frequent guest at innovative European festivals including Aldeburgh, the Holland Festival, West Cork, International Lied Festival Zeist, and Wonderfeel.
Dain is equally at home in oratorio; some favorite past performances include Bach Matthäus-Passion with the Academy of Ancient Music and the Choir of King’s College Cambridge, Handel Messiah in Carnegie Hall, Stravinsky Les Noces with the New York City Ballet, and Mozart Requiem and Beethoven Ninth Symphony with the Orchestra of the 18th Century and Cappella Amsterdam.
Dain holds degrees from Harvard University, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and Mannes College of Music. A dual citizen of the Netherlands and the United States, she currently lives in Rotterdam.
Ragazze Quartet
With unconventional yet compelling programmes, the all-female Ragazze Quartet belongs to the top Dutch string quartets. As great supporters of the contemporary music practice, they are known for opening up the string quartet genre, rooted in Western tradition, to new sounds and approaches. Ragazze thus provides a stage for underexposed composers and contributes to opening new perspectives.
As artists on the Channel Classics label, they are releasing their tenth album, They Have Waited Long Enough. The previous nine – Vivere, Cesko, FourFourThree, Spiegel, Bartók Bound Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, Winter reise, Open Spaces and But Not My Soul – were invariably met with good reviews.
Founded in 2001, the Ragazze Quartet consists of Rosa Arnold (violin), Jeanita Vriens (violin), Annemijn Bergkotte (viola) and Nathalie Flintrop (cello). They curate festival September Me, an annual festival with adventurous programming, featuring young Dutch and international musicians and makers.
The Ragazze Quartet receives multi-year funding from Performing Arts Fund NL and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts. Jeanita’s violin, Nathalie’s cello and Annemijn’s bow were made available by the Dutch Musical Instruments Foundation. Furthermore, the Ragazze own a quartet of classical bows made by Andreas Grütter, made possible by the Foundation Own Musical Instrument.
