Katherine was called by Metropolitan Opera Conductor Kurt Adler, “One of the voices of her generation.” After winning the Metropolitan Opera National Auditions at the age of twenty – at that time, the youngest ever to have been a national winner – she made her professional debut at the Santa Fe Opera.  She also appeared at the San Francisco Spring Opera as Lisette in La Rondine, sang four trans-continental tours with the Goldovsky Opera Theatre as Rosina in Barber of Seville, Micaela in Carmen, and as both Mimi and Musetta in La Boheme. She was a member of the Metropolitan Opera Studio, performed at Avery Fisher Hall as Micaela in Carmen, with the Duluth Opera as Oscar in The Masked Ball. Other roles she has performed include Filene in Mignon, Ophelia in Hamlet, Creuse in Milhaud’s Medee, Monica in The Medium, Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, both Gretel and the Mother in Hansel and Gretel, and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni.  She coached and did role study with Kurt Adler, as well as other prominent musicians and coaches, such as Martin Rich, John Moriarty, Anton Coppola and Emerson Buckley.

Early in her career, Katherine was a featured soloist with the Amarillo Symphony, the Oklahoma Symphony, as well as the U.S. Naval Academy orchestra and chorus. She has enjoyed the opportunity to perform chamber music in the New Composers Series at UNC, Re-encuentro Cubano Festival (modern Cuban composers) in Miami, and with the North Carolina Chamber Players. As anyone who has had a opportunity to hear Katherine in recital can attest, Katherine has a special affinity and fondness for the recital platform. In fact, in addition to her transcontinental opera tours, she has performed throughout the U.S., including recitals at venues as varied as the Brooklyn Museum, WNYC radio and television, the Community Concert Series in New Mexico, the Edna Hibel Museum in Palm Beach, and the Raleigh Museum of Art.

Katherine is not only a singer and extraordinary teacher of singing, but also an experienced stage director and teacher of acting.  She has also been an arts advocate for organizations in North Carolina and Florida and participated in fundraising campaigns for both arts and educational institutions. In the 1970s, she worked to bring opera to the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina and was a founder and the Artistic Director of the North Carolina Lyric Opera. At the same time, she served on Governor James B. Hunt’s Cultural Advisory Committee and was also Co-Chairman of his Opera Policy Sub-Committee. Later, in Miami she served on the Barry University Institutional Review Board, the task of which was to supervise the use of human subjects in graduate research projects leading to theses and dissertations.