Profile
Recognized by the New York Times for her “vibrant and colorful” singing, mezzo-soprano Kate Maroney is in demand on concert, oratorio and opera stages in works that span from the Renaissance to the 21st century.
Kate is a passionate believer in the deeply transformative, fully humanizing power of music and in its ability to foster empathy in the community of performers and listeners alike. She particularly values collaborations with kind and generous colleagues who share this conviction.
Kate has appeared in recent seasons as a soloist at Lincoln Center with the American Classical Orchestra and Sacred Music in a Sacred Space (Bach Mass in B-Minor), Carnegie Hall and Chicago’s Orchestra Hall (Handel Dixit Dominus), at LA Opera (Missy Mazzoli Song From the Uproar), Carmel Bach Festival (BWV 97 and 199), with New York Baroque Incorporated (Ambizione in the "new-world" premiere of Bonaventura Aliotti's Santa Rosalia at Trinity Wall Street), with Boston's Chorus Pro Musica at Jordan Hall (Beethoven Missa Solemnis), Indianapolis Symphonic Choir (Mendelssohn Elijah), Oregon Bach Festival (Bach Weihnachts-Oratorium), Santa Fe Desert Chorale (Corigliano Fern Hill), New York City Ballet and Musica Sacra (Mendelssohn A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Fairfield County Chorale (Bach Magnificat), Princeton Pro Musica (Bach Weihnachts-Oratorium) Clarion Music Society (alto soloist in Maxamilian Steinberg's Passion Week in New York, St. Petersberg, Moscow, and London), Bach Collegium San Diego (Handel Messiah), Mark Morris Dance Group (Vivaldi Gloria), “A Memorial to Allen Forte” at Yale University with Cantata Profana (Webern Op. 4 Fünf Lieder nach Gedichte von Stefan George), Bach Vespers at Holy Trinity, Bard Music Festival, with Anonymous 4 and The Bangor Symphony, Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble at the MATA Festival, Experiments in Opera, Yale Choral Artists, Vox Vocal Ensemble at The Guggenheim Museum, American Opera Projects, Berkshire Bach Society, Berkshire Choral International, Brooklyn Art Song Society, and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2012, Kate was a recipient of the William G. Blair award in the New York Oratorio Lyndon Woodside Soloist Competition. Kate is a founding member of New York’s Polydora Ensemble which specializes in Romantic repertoire for SATB quartet and piano and also commissions and premieres new works for these personnel. With the Polydora Ensemble, Kate has performed recitals at St. Ignatius Loyola, the German Consulate in New York, CUNY Grad Center's Elebash Hall, and Opera Grand Rapids, Michigan.
A fervent champion of new music, Kate recently performed Dominick Argento’s Pulitzer-prize winning piece, From The Diary of Virginia Woolf, in a staged adaptation by Håkan Hagegård at the Ordway Theater in St. Paul, MN, as part of the Source Song Festival. Kate was the mezzo soloist (singing texts of Emily Dickinson) in Martin Bresnick's world premiere oratorio "Passions of Bloom" with the Yale Choral Artists and Yale Sinfonia under Jeffrey Douma as part of New Haven's Festival of Arts and Ideas. She performed the U.S. premiere of Damon Albarn’s Monkey: Journey to the West at the David Koch Theatre during the Lincoln Center Festival in 2013 under Brad Lubman and the U.S. premiere of Here All Night with the Irish theater company Gare St. Lazare Ireland as part of Lincoln Center’s 2015 White Lights Festival. Kate worked closely with Missy Mazzoli to develop and premiere Song From The Uproar at The Kitchen in 2012 (and is heard on the premiere cast recording on New Amsterdam Records with the Now Ensemble under Steven Osgood.) Kate created the role of Brianna in Matthew Welch’s collaborative opera Sisyphus with Experiments in Opera and she recorded James Adler’s Reflections upon a September morn for Albany Records. Kate sings on the recording of Julia Wolfe’s 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning and 2016 GRAMMY®-nominated work, Anthracite Fields, with the Bang On A Can All-Stars and The Choir of Trinity Wall Street under Julian Wachner. Kate is the alto soloist on Clarion's 2017 GRAMMY®-nominated recording of Maxamilian Steinberg's Passion Week. She has worked closely with and premiered works by composers Philip Glass, Julia Wolfe, Martin Bresnick, Daron Hagen, Dominick Argento, David Lang, Hannah Lash, Paola Prestini, Missy Mazzoli, Ted Hearne, Alex Weiser, Olga Bell, Lisa Bielawa, Harry Stafylakis, Christopher Cerrone, Jacob Cooper, Michael Rose, Ola Gjeilo, and Scott Wheeler.
From 2012 to 2015, Kate was featured worldwide in over 75 performances of Einstein on the Beach with the Philip Glass Ensemble. With her Einstein on the Beach family, Kate performed this iconic piece for audiences in Montpellier, Paris, London, Brooklyn, Toronto, Reggio Emilia, Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Melbourne, Berkeley, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Berlin and, most recently, in Gwangju, South Korea. Being part of this historic tour and piece of living art was a profound and transformative experience for which Kate is incredibly grateful. She also learned how to sing numbers really fast.
Kate holds a a D.M.A. from Eastman in Voice Performance and Literature with a Minor in Voice Pedagogy, as well as degrees in music from SUNY Purchase and Yale. She has written articles published in The Journal of The New York Singing Teachers' Association ("Reflections from the Beach: Einstein on the Voice") and a blog entry on singing Webern for the Society of Music Theory Performance and Analysis Interest Group (http://societymusictheory.org/societies/interest/performanceanalysis).
In addition to performing, Kate is an avid teacher and she recently joined voice faculty at Mannes (The New School) where she teaches a voice pedagogy course and private students within the Voice and Opera department. When not singing (or teaching) her heart out, Kate loves being home in Fort Greene, Brooklyn with jazz-musician and composer husband Red Wierenga and their two cats.
Degrees Held
D.M.A. Eastman School of Music, M.M. Yale University, B.M. SUNY Purchase