Biography
Kathryn Summersett, soprano, Doctor of Music, and McClosky Voice Technician is currently located in Houghton, MI. She earned her Doctor of Music in Historical Performance from Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. Summersett received her MM from University of North Texas and her BM from University of Massachusetts. In 2013, she became a Certified McClosky Voice Technician (http://www.mcclosky.org/kathryn-summersett).
While in Indiana, Kathryn was a regular soloist for the Bloomington Bach Cantata Project as well as the Bach Collegium in Fort Wayne, IN. She also sang for the modern premiere of Mexican Solo Cantata Murio por el pecado by Manuel de Sumuya that was broadcast nationwide on National Public Radio in 2014 and subsequent Christmas seasons.
Kathryn has been a featured soloist at Boston Early Music Festival in 2009, 2011 and 2013 and in 2010, she performed by invitation at the University of Cordoba in Argentina.. In the 2014-15-season, she performed in the first American Bach soloist’s Academy, as well as the Berkley Early Music Festival for EMA's Young Performers Festival. She topped off this busy season by directing, and performing in, the Bloomington Early Music Festival.
At UNT, Kathryn received the Adams/Nordstrom Early Music Award given to one student per year. In addition, while at UNT, she performed the role of Despina in Cosi Fan Tutte with the UNT opera.
Kathryn was the first vocalist to receive a scholarship to attend the Lute Society of America conference in 2012. She has soloed regularly with groups such as Liber: Ensemble for Early Music, Les Touches, Pro Arte: Saint Louis, Shakespeare's Ear, and Concentus Ensemble within the Jacob’s School of Music. I.U. roles include the Italian girl in J.B. Lully's Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, fairy in Massenet’s Cendrillon, Venus in John Blow's Venus and Adonis, Humilitas in Hildegard von Bingen's Ordo Virtutum, and La Paix and La Sagessa in Lully’s Armide and Proserpine.
In addition to her solo achievements, Kathryn enjoyed directed and produced staged early music shows including 2013 The Purcell Project: A Masque in 2013, Musica Dolce for the Jacobs School of Music EMI and Bloomington Early Music Festival in 2014, and Heaven Versus Earth: A Soul's Moral Predicament in, 2015, for the JSOM organ conference. In addition, Kathryn directed the Medieval opera Ordo Virtutum for both Indiana University's Concentus ensemble and the Midwest Medieval Musical Conference in Terre Haute, IN.