katherine Dowling //
critical acclaim //
Praised by the New York Times for her “crystalline performances, gestural expressiveness, and careful attention to color”, and by the Boston Globe for her “effortless incisiveness”, award- winning “tour-de-force” (OpusKlassiek, Berkshire Eagle) pianist Katherine Dowling performs across North America and Europe as a soloist and chamber musician and can be heard on nearly a dozen outstanding recordings.
in search of the unheard //
Katherine thrives on making new musical discoveries (she’s premiered over 25 works by young composers, and has worked with John Harbison, Louis Andriessen and Oliver Knussen) and the thrill of live performance - always playing from memory so that the music is fully internalized.
She loves to discover sounds that she has never heard nor imagined before, to explore beauty that isn’t nice or pretty.
On stage she relishes being able to tell stories beyond words, the vulnerability of opening herself up to an audience, the ephemerality of a sound experience, being a conduit between a composer and a listener.
news //
commitment to craft //
Katherine is an avid collaborator, whether she’s playing duos with her best friend, the violinist Catherine Cosbey, or working with the Dutch-based ensemble Gruppo Montebello.
She believes anything creative is an act of service, finds comfort in discipline and hard work, and realizes musicians are always reaching for something unattainable.
the Elegy Project //
During the darkest days of the pandemic, Katherine found comfort and company in music about grief. She built a recital around it which she performed 10 times and across Canada.
Listen to her CBC interview about it.
repertoire
Ferruccio Busoni, Béla Bartók, Frédéric Chopin, Alice Ping-Yee Ho, Arnold Schönberg, Valentin Silvestrov, Teresa Carreño & Rudolf Escher.
calendar //
Journey of learning //
Katherine grew up in Regina, Canada, surrounded by music. Piano lessons began early and she’s never tired of spending hours at the keyboard, exploring the endless possibilities of sound, sonorities, colours, textures - while revelling in the physicality of playing.
She’s studied throughout North America and Europe, discovering contemporary chamber music at the Aldeburgh Festival, spending summers at Tanglewood and winters at the Banff Centre, completing her Doctorate at Stony Brook University with Gilbert Kalish.
teaching & community //
She’s currently Assistant Professor of Piano at the York University in Toronto, on faculty at the duo526 Sonata Seminar (Brandon University) and the Orlando European Summer Course for Chamber Music.
While Professor of Piano at the University of Regina, she loved living and working back in her home province of Saskatchewan, the Land of Living Skies, and still takes every opportunity to give concerts in small communities around the prairies.
