Biography

Kate Conklin is a soprano and a leading interpreter of the highly ornamented vocal music of Bulgaria. She was the vocalist for Cirque du Soleil's "O" for two years. She returned to LA in 2006 to sing for films and new works and to direct the highly acclaimed Bulgarian Vocal Ensembles at California Institute of the Arts, where she was also voice faculty for four years.

Kate teaches Voice, Alexander Technique and the neurobiology of performance practice. Her work has been called "simple and instantly adoptable, yet radical and groundbreaking."  She specializes in working with high-level performers whose work demands both excellent technique and profound artistry. Kate works with elite performers from musical, athletic and theatrical arenas including members of the LA Phil, LA Master Chorale and Cirque du Soleil. She has taught and lectured at The California State Summer School for the Arts, The Oakwood School, Academy of Creative Education, US Performing Arts Theater Conservatory in Los Angeles, CalArts, Pomona College, LA Music Academy, The Marlborough School, USC, UCLA San Francisco Conservatory of Music and OperaWorks. Her clients are singers, voice teachers, music producers, actors, dancers, conductors, mimes, clowns, high-divers and  aerialists.

Kate was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Bulgaria in 2002. There she rehearsed and performed as a member of the The Academic Folk Choir of the Plovdiv Academy of Music, developing her work in regional solo repertoire, choral literature, conducting and pedagogy. She also received the LifeWorks Foundation Research Grant for Early American Folk Music in 2003 in Nashville.

In collaboration with "Machine Project" Kate has brought live Bulgarian Vocal Installations to the Hammer Museum and The Los Angeles County Museum of Art. She has presented about idiomatic improvisation and the re-contextualization of folk melodies in film scores at The American Film Composers Forum Salon.

Kate is currently in development with a new solo performance piece, "Recreational Science" written for her by Javier Navarrette (Oscar-nominated composer for "Pan's Labyrinth.") "Recreational Science" is a list of discoveries, curiosities and scientific innovation between the 18th and mid-20th centuries with the central character of "Science", herself, as guide and narrator; both relaying and experiencing the euphoria and despair of the scientific process.