Katherine Doig - Sister Genevieve
Born in Christchurch, Katherine graduated from the University of Canterbury in 2005 with first class honours in music and in history. Whilst at Canterbury, she was awarded both the Michael Toovey Memorial Prize for her outstanding academic and executant ability in music, and also the Joan Burns Memorial Scholarship, for the top postgraduate scholar in history.
Katherine’s early love of music was fostered first by piano lessons with Carol Spain, and later with Wallace Woodley QSO, and she attained a diploma in solo piano performance from Trinity College, London, at the tender age of 16.
Like many Doigs, her flirtation with cricket ultimately ended in disaster when a mistimed attempt at what would’ve been a spectacular catch on the boundary shattered her right hand, and with it, her (let’s be honest, quite improbable) dream of becoming the next Lang Lang. By the way, the ball went for 6.
This misfortune did however result in her turning her attention to vocal study. Her formative years of vocal training came under the expert tutelage of outstanding NZ soprano, the late Suzanne Prain - to whose studio she returned in 2008, after three years living and working in Sydney and Melbourne. From 2012, Katherine studied under Amanda Atlas in Christchurch, and in 2015, she went on to study with renowned NZ tenor and teacher Patrick Power ONZM in Adelaide, Australia. She currently studies under Margot Button in Christchurch, and continues to work with Patrick Power as her coach. Katherine has also been fortunate enough to receive regular operatic vocal coaching from Sharolyn Kimmorley AM, and to have worked with other notable coaches, such as Chuck Hudson, and Glenn Winslade.
Katherine first found her feet in opera as a member of the Canterbury Opera Youth Chorus while still at high school in Christchurch, and she went on to become a member of the Southern Opera Chorus, the Opera Club, and the Freemasons Opera Chorus of New Zealand Opera - for which she still sings. Her most recent mainstage opera performances were in the choruses of Southern Opera’s The Magic Flute, and New Zealand Opera’s Don Giovanni, La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, Carmen, Tosca, and Le nozze di Figaro, and in concert she recently performed as Papagena for New Zealand Opera’s Lazy Sundays in the Christchurch Botanic Gardens. For Toi Toi Opera, she has had the absolute joy of performing the role of Suor Genovieffa in Suor Angelica & Elegies.
Katherine also regularly performs in and around Ōtautahi as a solo recitalist, most recently with composer, pianist and organist Jeremy Woodside, and as part of The Operatives, an opera quintet which she and four friends launched at the Akaroa International Music Festival. She has also been delighted at the chance to indulge her passion for choral music in recent years, performing as a soloist/ensemble member with the Cantores Chamber Choir, the University of Canterbury Chamber Choir, the Christchurch Pops Choir, Atlas Voices, and the CSO Symphony Chorus. Particular choral highlights for Katherine recently were singing as a soprano soloist for Atlas Voices’ performances of Mozart’s Requiem and Ola Gjeilo’s Dark Night of the Soul.
Outside of her musical life, Katherine works as an archivist for the New Zealand Government.