Kate Quartano Brown read English at Oxford and studied singing in Austria before becoming a director. She has worked with most of the major British opera companies, and across Europe and the US.  She was the first woman to direct Handel operas at the festivals of Göttingen (Riccardo Primo) and Halle (Flavio).  Glasgow’s Tramway saw her first modern productions of the operas of Rospigliosi (Pope Clement IX). Modern opera productions include the premieres of Jonathan Dove’s Tobias and the Angel for the Almeida, London, and G.P.Cribari’s Las Escondidas in Glasgow.  In addition, she has written and produced numerous smaller-scale pieces based around the music of Purcell (An Elegy for Mr Purcell), Hildegard of Bingen (A Conversation with Angels), Haydn (Lady Hamilton’s Attitudes), and ancient Scottish and Galician chant and songs (Celtic Voyages). She is very interested in how practising contemporary acting techniques can illuminate the performance of early opera, and was given an STR award for her Passions Project (in association with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama).

Website:  cockaigne.org.uk