KATHRYN WHITNEY

Artistic Director

A singer, choral director, and voice teacher based in British Columbia, Kathryn Whitney is Artistic Director of the One World Baroque Virtual Orchestra & Chorus, which she founded in 2020 with Daniel Taylor. 

Kathryn is also Artistic Director of SING THE NORTH – The Canadian Virtual Choir and the Pacific Song Collective. She is a long associate of the Victoria Conservatory of Music on Vancouver Island, where she has been Artistic Director of the Summer Baroque Choral Academy, the Summer Baroque Soloists Program, and the Summer Choral Program (with Brian Wismath), as well as the annual Art Song Project.

A clinician for the BC Choral Federation, Kathryn has travelled throughout the province, giving workshops on vocal technique, choral skills, and sight-reading to both amateur and professional choirs and small ensembles, including the Shushwap Singers, the Kelowna Community Chorus, the Prince George Cantata Singers, the Langley Community Chorus, the Newcomb Singers, the Victoria Choral Society, and Hexaphone.

Kathryn trained in Toronto, New York, and England, where she worked as a freelance soloist, chorister, and researcher for more than a decade. A passionate teacher, prior to becoming a performer and choral director, she taught music history and aesthetics as a college lecturer at Oxford University for 12 years, with concurrent appointments at Cambridge, the Royal Academy of Music.

Artist in Residence at the Royal Welsh College of Music and at Wolfson College, Oxford, she has held fellowships at King’s College, London, the Institute of Musical Research, and the University of London School of Advanced Study, where she founded the SongArt Performance Research Group with Amanda Glauert & Paul Alan Barker, which she currently co-directs with Verica Grmusa.

Kathryn’s performance, touring, and commissioning projects have received support from the BC Arts Council, the Canada Council, the Arts Council of England, and the British Council, among others. She has sung recitals at the Oxford Lieder Festival, St John’s Smith Square in London, for the Regina Musical Club, at the Ralston Recital Hall in Banff, at the universities of Regina, British Columbia, Mount Allison, Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford, Bangor, York, and Victoria. Concerts include engagements with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Dame Emma Kirkby, Stephen Darlington, Steven Devine, and Christian Curnyn. A champion of new music, she has sung the premiere of more than 50 songs and song cycles, the majority written for her voice. Kathryn has a wonderful time recital touring in Canada, including with pianists Anita Comba, and Charlotte Hale with whom she showcased for both the BC Touring Council and the Organisation of Saskatchewan Arts Councils.

Kathryn looks forward to welcoming you to the One World Baroque Virtual Orchestra & Chorus, and hopes the ensemble will inspire and encourage you in your music-making, wherever you may be.