From our ‘Purcell, Dido and Aeneas’ programme, February 2017
Katie was born in Reigate, Surrey, where she lived until she went to Birmingham University in 2000. She was fortunate to go to a school with a rich musical tradition. Her junior school music teacher used to call her ‘foghorn Katie’ during class singing – rather less than flattering, but she did suggest Katie started singing lessons, which very quickly became the best thing Katie ever did!
At Birmingham University she met (and later married!) a certain Peter Trethewey, whilst enjoying opportunities to perform with the many choirs and to take on an operatic role each summer. After graduating in 2003, she went on to take a Postgraduate degree in singing at Birmingham Conservatoire – though most of her first year there was spent planning her wedding!
Katie now works and records regularly with several groups, including Ex Cathedra with whom she has a particularly special relationship. Consort work has taken her all over the world, whilst solo work has taken her to wonderful concert venues including Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, Birmingham’s Hippodrome Theatre, London’s Wigmore Hall and Cadogan Hall, and most recently the Royal Albert Hall, where Katie fulfilled her childhood dream to sing a solo there. It may not have been a regular concert – it was for Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet – but to tick that dream off the bucket list was rather wonderful!
Katie divides her time now between performing, teaching, and looking after her and Peter’s son. We try to bring him along to rehearsals when we can, and he certainly gets a lot of mummy singing round the house!
1. How long have you been a member of Ex Cathedra and why did you join?
When I was in my second year at university, I met Peter whilst we were both performing in the university’s Summer Festival Opera. He had been a member of Ex Cathedra for a few years and suggested I audition to Jeffrey. I jumped at the opportunity – despite Peter telling me that Jeffrey could be a bit of a hard task-master! I joined as an amateur, and stayed that way until about 2006 when I turned professional. It was great to start with amateur status, as I really got to know all the members of the choir. It feels like a ‘happy family’ and I have some wonderful friends amongst the singers. It has been great to progress through the group, and to have had such lovely solo opportunities in recent years.
2. What does a typical day look like for you?
I don’t have a typical day – I think most musicians don’t! I love the variety of my job. Some days I drop my son off at school and head off to the school I teach at, or come home and catch up with the endless admin, before picking him up and coming home to play some energetic game or other with him. Or I’m up at the crack of dawn and heading down to London for rehearsals, concerts or recording sessions. Some days I’m off in the car to somewhere around the country for a concert. Or I’m getting on a plane to fly off somewhere on tour. One of the huge perks of the job is getting to see all sorts of places that I wouldn’t otherwise see. I’m incredibly lucky to get to sing an enormous variety of music – Tallis right through to Harry Potter soundtracks – with amazing musicians in amazing places. I wouldn’t change a thing!
3. If you could choose to perform again any piece you have performed before with Ex Cathedra, what would it be, and & why?
This is a very difficult question to answer! There are so many fantastic pieces I’ve been lucky enough to sing with Ex Cathedra; one of the wonderful things about the group is the huge variety of music that Jeffrey programmes. The best music for me is that which really gives you an emotional response, be it joy or sorrow. I’m going to go with Bach’s Mass in B minor. I love Bach, and for me his music is up there at the top, but the B minor is, in my mind, an absolute masterpiece. The performance Ex Cathedra did last Autumn was so exciting; it really fizzed with energy and sparkle and I came away feeling on top of the world. The emotions are all there and Bach weaves them into the music with such incredible skill – the joy of the Gloria, the majesty of the Sanctus, the lamenting of the Agnus Dei.
4. What’s your musical “guilty secret”?
I’m pretty hopeless at listening to classical music at home; I think because I’m so immersed in it in the course of my performing and teaching. I do have a bit of a penchant for the pop music of the 80s and 90s – the soundtrack of my childhood and my teenage years! The soundtrack in our house nowadays is more often than not dominated by the noise of our five year old!