Mezzo-soprano Katherine Dobbs is a native Houstonian and Second-Year Master’s Student in Vocal Performance under Dr. Robin Rice at The Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. Just last school year she portrayed Ottavia in Monteverdi's L’incoronazione di Poppea, Mrs. Jones in Kurt Weill's Street Scene, and won 2nd place in the Houston Gilbert & Sullivan Society’s Career Grant Competition. She earned a Bachelor of Music from the DePauw School of Music with minors in German & Italian, performing as Orfeo in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, Miss Todd in Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief, Die Knusperhexe in Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, and Madame de la Haltière in Massenet's Cendrillon. Past summer engagements include Ježibaba in LAH-SOW’s production of Dvorak's Rusalka (2023), Studio Artist in the Music Academy of the West’s Lehrer Institute (2023), and Intermediate Artist in Dolora Zajick’s Institute for Young Dramatic Voices (2020-2023). This fall at Rice University she was Filipievna and cover for Olga in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin, and this spring she will star in the title role of Lucretia in Britten's The Rape of Lucretia.