Katherine Ciesinski

Katherine Ciesinski (born October 13, 1950) is an American mezzo-soprano, stage director, and voice professor.

Ciesinski was born to Delaware Sports Hall of Famer Roman Ciesinski and Katherine Hansen Ciesinski. She is the sister of opera singer Kristine Ciesinski (1952-2018). Her early studies in piano and voice were locally in Delaware, then at Temple University and the Curtis Institute of Music with Margaret Harshaw and Dino Yannopolous. In 1974, she won the Gramma Fischer Award at the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the following year, the WGN Auditions of the Air. In 1977, she took first prize at the Concours International de Chant de Paris by unanimous decision of the jury, while a year earlier having won first prize at the Geneva International Music Competition. Her sister Kristine won the same prize the following year at the same competition.

Her professional orchestra debut was at 16, but her first professional operatic successes came at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence in 1976 in La traviata and her first notable American performances were at the Spoleto Festival USA in 1978 as Erika in Samuel Barber's Vanessa, one of the very first operas broadcast by the Great Performances series. She has performed as a guest artist at the Metropolitan Opera, at Covent Garden, with Scottish Opera, and with the Paris, San Francisco, Brussels, Canadian, Santa Fe, Frankfurt, Dallas, Houston Grand, Stuttgart, St. Louis, and Chicago Lyric Operas. She performed Countess Geschwitz in the American premiere of the completed three-act version of Lulu at Santa Fe Opera.She also portrayed the role of Cecilia March in the world premiere of Mark Adamo's Little Women with the Houston Grand Opera.