A prizewinning British soprano, Katerina Mina recently took the trio of leading roles in the world premiere of Three Women, composed by Vasos Argyrides to a libretto by Tim Welton, and staged in Cyprus by director Maxine Braham. Among the roles Katerina is currently preparing for the stage are Turandot, Brünnhilde (Die Walküre and Siegfried), Elsa (Lohengrin) and Elisabetta (Don Carlo). Her career has already encompassed Senta (Der fliegende Holländer), Santuzza (Cavalleria rusticana), Leonora (La forza del destino), Giorgetta (Il tabarro), Tosca, Manon Lescaut, Violetta (La traviata), Mimì (La bohème), Nedda (Pagliacci), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Elle (La Voix humaine) and Kupava (Snegurochka).

Katerina was born in Cyprus and makes her home in London, where she studied voice and piano at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama before going on to win prizes at the Julián Gayarre International Singing Competition and Concorso Vocale Internazionale di Musica Sacra. She is now mentored by the American voice teacher Pamela Kuhn and coaches with Anthony Negus, Anthony Legge and Martin Fitzpatrick.

In 2018 she released her debut album, Angel of Fire, on the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s own label. Accompanied by the RPO under conductor Grzegorz Nowak, she performs operatic arias by Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Beethoven, Giordano and Cilea, Andromache’s Farewell by Samuel Barber, and the world premieres of two songs by Swiss composer, Stephan Hodel, which are settings of poems written by Katerina herself.

On the concert platform, Katerina has appeared in London at the Southbank Centre, Cadogan Hall, St John’s Smith Square, St Martin-in-the-Fields (with the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra under Marios Papadopoulos), Conway Hall and the Hackney Empire. Around the UK she has performed at the Buxton Opera House, Shrewsbury Abbey, De La Warr Pavilion (Bexhill-on-Sea), De Montfort Hall (Leicester), and with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Nick Davies, at the Royal and Derngate Theatre in Northampton. Her European engagements have taken her to Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Paris, Florence, Ancona, Tenerife, Moscow, Zagreb, Athens and her native Cyprus, where she notably appeared in concerts of Mozart and Grieg with the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra under Esa Heikkilä. Beyond Europe she has toured Japan and appeared in Toluca and Acolman with the State of Mexico Symphony Orchestra.

Katerina Mina’s wide-ranging concert repertoire includes the Verdi and Mozart Requiems, Beethoven’s Symphony No.9, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, Haydn’s ‘Nelson’ Mass, Kleine Orgelmesse and Scena di Berenice, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater and Te Deum, Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, songs by Duparc, Tippett’s Five Negro Spirituals from A Child of Our Time, David Fanshawe’s African Sanctus, Ian Fletcher’s new oratorio Jonah, Epitaph and Epiphany by Mikis Theodorakis, The Peacemakers by Karl Jenkins and ‘symphonic rock’ by Rick Wakeman.

In March 2022 at Stockholm’s House of Nobility Katerina received a medal from the Stockholm Culture Awards for her contribution to opera. She appeared beside the late Professor Stephen Hawking at the closing ceremony of STARMUS 2014, the International Festival of Astronomy, in the Canary Islands, where she performed music by Alexandros Hahalis, and in 2018 she opened and closed the inaugural ceremony of the First International Day of Light at the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris, performing songs by the British songwriter Linda Lamon.  

As an educator she has directed two school choirs and a number of successful musical productions, and has recently been appointed an ambassador to Wild Arts, a fast-growing organisation with a commitment to environmental sustainability.  

Photo 1: Elle in La Voix Humaine

Photo 2: Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana

Photo 3: Hecuba in Three Women