Kate Westbrook's musical career began
in the mid '70's when she joined the Mike Westbrook Brass
Band. She has toured widely and has recorded more than
20 albums. Kate's vocal range embraces Contemporary Music,
Opera, Music Hall, as well as Jazz and Popular Song. She
sang the role of Anna in The Seven Deadly Sins by Brecht and Weill with the London Symphony Orchestra, arias by Rossini with the Mike Westbrook Orchestra in Big Band Rossini at the Proms, and songs
by the Beatles with the Westbrook Band in Off Abbey Road.
Kate multi-tracked most of the roles in the television opera
Good Friday 1663 (with libretto by Helen Simpson), now released
on a CD as part of Jazzprint's Westbrook Music Theatre series.
Kate sings in several European languages, especially Italian,
French and German. She was guest soloist in a series of
performances in the Christus Pavillon at the Expo 2000,
Hannover, in a work by composer Heribert Leuchter,
KlangWeltReligion. In 2002 she collaborated with Heribert
on a music-theatre piece, Reich durch Arm, commissioned
by WDR, and premiered in Aachen. Kate makes a guest appearence on Leuchter's new Trio album RESET.
Kate Westbrook's work as a lyricist has encompassed everything from cabaret
songs to opera. She wrote book and lyrics for the music
theatre piece Platterback, performed by Westbrook & Company and the Westbrook Trio's 20th anniversary album L'ascenseur
/ The Lift (both on Jazzprint). Also for the current Westbrook
project ART WOLF, based on the life and work of the Alpine
painter Caspar Wolf (1735 - 83) released on the Swiss
label altrisuoni, and THE WAXEYWORK SHOW for the newly formed Mike Westbrook Village Band - (more information about The Village Band on Mike Westbrook's site).
Kate wrote texts for Chanson Irresponsable (Enja Records), one of many collaborations with Mike Westbrook,
which include settings of European poetry, as in such concert
works as The Cortege and London Bridge is Broken Down. She
wrote the libretto for their opera Jago, and the recent
Turner in Uri, a celebration of the painter JMW Turner's travels in the Alps, commissioned by the 2003 Alpentoene
Festival. The Westbrooks' one-woman opera CAPE GLOSS, Mathilda's Story, for soprano Marie Vassilliou, comissioned by NOC, will be premiered in Plymouth in February 2007.
In her recording project Cuff Clout, (Voiceprint)
a neoteric music-hall, performed by her group The Skirmishers,
Kate's lyrics are set by eight composers from the worlds
of pop, rock, jazz and classical music. On her solo album
Goodbye Peter Lorre (also Voiceprint) she is accompanied
by pianists John Alley and Mike Westbrook and the vocal
group Fine Trash. Other albums include Music For Other Occasions with Lindsay Cooper and the Duo album, Love
Or Infatuation with Mike Westbrook, based on the Hollywood Songs of Frederich
Hollaender.
On Her latest album for Voiceprint The Nijinska Chamber a celebration of the life and work of the dancer and choreographer Bronislava Nijinska , with music by Mike Westbrook, Kate is joined by accordionist Karen Street.
Kate Westbrook is currently performing ART WOLF in a quartet with Mike Westbrook and saxophonists Chris
Biscoe and Pete Whyman.
Kate studied Fine Art, and continues to exhibit her work in solo and group shows in Britain and abroad. Some of Kate's work is on show on our gallery pages.
Press Quotes:
Once again, one was struck by the unique talent and incisive charm of the singer. Singer? Hardly word enough to describe an entertainer musician who knows as no-one else how to change words into notes, an all-round comedienne who uses her voice infallibly with a poetic sense of the dramatic, a multi-lingual singer (she is equally at home singing in French, German and Italian as well as English) who takes the stage with a radiant ease, much grace, humour and sensuality in all aspects of song. The exquisite Kate... Pascai Anquetil Monde De La Musique
CUFF CLOUT REVIEW - DownBeat Rating
British vocalist Kate Westbrook has a gift for music theater. Updating early 20th-century English music hall on Cuff Clout, Westbrook sets her witty and eccentric texts to bold and fascinating genre-crossing music composed by eight collaborators, including her bandleader husband Mike Westbrook and other Anglo jazz worthies Chris Biscoe, Lindsay Cooper and Barbara Thompson.
Maintaining a wicked edginess in her rich, limber voice, she skewers the memory of the millionaire inventor of barbed wire on "Glidden" and plumbs a gloomy, stately mood on the striking piano-and-voice ballad "My Lazy Goodheart," where her emotional timbre suggests blood ties to Marianne Faithfull. John Winfield is one hell of a lead singer, too, playing the part of a jailbird's confederate to the hilt in "Toad's Washerwoman" and wrenching cryptic meaning out of the words to "The Riddle."
Together, Westbrook and Winfield embark on a cosmic journey singing the terrifically daft "Oceans, Straits, Currents & Seas"- think Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, Lord Byron and private eye John Shaft sharing a pickle jar full of LSD.
Kate's Skirmishers band performs with a deft touch, whether sounding like an old strip joint combo on "Toad's Washerwoman" or enshrouding "One Cezanne Apple" with a Third Stream funereal air. Getting comfortable with Westbrook's "neoteric music hall" may take some work but it's worth it.
Frank-John Hadley - Downbeat
Kate's CD's
Kate Westbrook's Current CD's and how to buy them online
Contacts
How to contact management & Record Companies
Kate Westbrook's
Gallery
View a
selection of Kate Westbrook paintings
