Academics

Kathleen Van De Graaff > Biographical Sketch

Kathleen Van De Graaff, MM has been teaching in the music department at Lake Forest College for 15 years.  She has also taught at St. Xavier University, Brigham Young University and the College of Lake County.

Miss Van De Graaff is a soprano who has vast performance experience which includes opera, oratorio and recital work and she has had work in Europe, Asia, and North and Central America. She has sung at the International Music Festival of Costa Rica Grand Teton Music Festival, Bloomington Early Music Festival, Boston Early Music Festival, St. Louis Early Music Festival, San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, Chicago Opera Theater, Milwaukee Opera Company, Louisiana Philharmonic, Jackson Symphony, Racine Symphony, Manitou Music Festival, Chicago String Ensemble, Music of the Baroque, Washington/Idaho Symphony, Chicago Chamber Opera, North Shore Choral Society, among others. Her operatic repertoire includes Gilda in Rigoletto, the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, Constanze in The Abduction from the Seraglio, Antonia in The Tales of Hoffman, and the title roles in Martha and Lucrezia Borgia. 

On the concert stage, some of Miss Van De Graaff’s highlights include Rossini's Stabat Mater, Handel's Messiah, Haydn's Mass in Time of War and The Creation, Mozart's Solemn Vespers, Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Saint-Saens' Christmas Oratorio among others.

She is the creator of the series  Winning Warm-ups for the Voice and More Winning Warm-ups for the Voice which are 8 different CD’s containing voice exercises.   She has also published  A Systematic Approach to Voice Exercises, Italian Arias from 18th Century Comic Chamber Operas for the soprano voice and Italian Arias from 18th Century Comic Chamber Operas  for the baritone/bass Voice plus Italian Duets from 18th Century Comic Chamber Operas.

She and her bass-baritone husband, Peter, have been instrumental in bringing to light intermezzi from the 18th century. They have traveled throughout Europe obtaining scores of these early chamber operas and have since transcribed them and translated them into English.   They have subsequently gained notoriety as specialists in this area, performing them throughout the United States, Japan, Costa Rica as well as on live radio broadcasts in Chicago and nationwide. They have received several grants to present these operas to children.  This past summer, the Mozart year, they were invited to participate at the International Vocal Symposium in Salzburg, Austria where they lectured about the genre and gave examples from intermezzi. They have recently released a CD of 2 of these intermezzi on Naxos Intl Record label:   Moschetta e Grullo and Mirena e Floro.