Katherine Chu, Head Coach

 

Katherine Chu is an American pianist, vocal coach, and artistic consultant, and is currently on Faculty of Collaborative Piano at The Tianjin Julliard School. Chu is a pioneer in vocal coaching and opera musical preparation in China. As Director of Music Administration at the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) in Beijing

from 2011 to 2016, she oversaw all musical activities for the opera productions, recruited inter-national guest coaches, music staff, and singers’ corps, and was a consultant for artistic planning and casting. She served as Executive Director of Suzhou Symphony Orchestra from 2017 to 2020. She is the Director of Programming at the iSING International Young Artists Festival in Suzhou and New York. After working as an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera from 1996 to 2006, Chu took on the role of musical assistant to Seiji Ozawa and chorus master for the Saito

Kinen Festival in Japan. She served as head of musical preparation at the Teatro Municipal de la Opera in Santiago, Chile, and was a coach, répétiteur, and assistant conductor for the Salzburg Festival, the Spoleto Festival, Buenos Aires Lirica, Palm Beach Opera, and the Philharmonic of Taiwan. Before The Tianjin Julliard School, Chu taught at the Seiji Ozawa Music Academy, the Renata Scotto Opera Academy, the Juilliard Opera Centre, and lectured at Yale University. She gave master classes at the North Carolina School of Fine Arts, Taipei University of the Arts, Tokyo Music College,

Shanghai Conservatory, and Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Chu’s book, Singing in Mandarin — the first definitive text on the subject of Chinese lyric diction and vocal literature — will be published by Rowman and Littlefield Press in late 2020.