About Katy

Katy Shackleton Williams has made herself right at home with the Pittsburgh music scene with prestigious organizations such as the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO), Pittsburgh Opera, Civic Light Opera, Quantum Theatre, Front Porch Theatricals, the Mendelssohn Choir, Pittsburgh Festival Opera, Pittsburgh Concert Chorale, Resonance Works, and River City Brass Band. Across the country, she has had the frequent pleasure of singing with Maestro Larry Loh’s Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, West Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Symphor!a and Dallas Symphony. In addition, she has sung with Maestro Lucas Richman’s Knoxville Symphony Orchestra (TN) and with Bangor Symphony Orchestra (ME).

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Katy was a featured soloist for the PSO Holiday Pops concert series, singing the Marvin Hamlisch original song “Take Me to Christmas Past.” She made her Pittsburgh Symphony debut in September 2005 with Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Nights Dream and has been a frequent guest artist ever since. She was the boy soprano voice in Howard Shore’s Heinz Hall performance of The Lord of the Rings. She has also performed with the Spoleto Festival in Charleston, SC, and has sung the National Anthem in Pittsburgh’s Three Rivers Stadium.

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Notable solo engagements include being the soloist in Dallas, TX for the Dallas Symphony Christmas Pops in 2018.  It was 16 days of high caliber music and entertainment! She sang the Mahler Symphony #2 for Voices of the Spirit at The Peterson Events Center with the PSO and over 2,000 voices, sang the Star Spangled Banner for the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden and went up in a hot air balloon after singing in Steamboat Springs, CO.

Some other performances include Honegger’s King David, Christopher Theofanidis’s, The Here and Now, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Vaughan Williams’s Dona Nobis Pacem, Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s St. John’s Passion and Cantatas 74, 51, 52 and 202, Dubois’s Seven Last Words of Christ, Barber’s Prayers of Kierkegaard, Holst’s Christmas Day, Archer, Brahms, Duruflé, Fauré, Mozart and Rutter Requiem, and Poulenc, Rutter and Vivaldi Gloria. She also had the honor of singing at the dedication of the Fred Rogers Center at St. Vincent’s College with acclaimed songwriter/pianist Michael Moricz.

Operatic roles include ‘Margarita Xirgu’ in Osvaldo Golijov’s opera Ainadamar, Mrs. P in Nyman’s opera The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat, ‘Adina’ in Elixir of Love, ‘Adele’ in Die Fledermaus, ‘First Mother’ in Dead Man Walking, ‘Love’ in Orfeo and Eurydice, ‘Barbarina’ in The Marriage of Figaro and ‘Sandmann’ and ‘Taumann‘ in Hansel und Gretel. She has sung under the baton of Manfred Honeck, Sir Andrew Davis, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Rafael Frübeck de Burgos, Lucas Richman, Marvin Hamlisch, Robert Page, Daniel Meyer and most notably Lawrence Loh.

She made her musical theater debut in Jason Robert Brown's, Bridges of Madison County as 'Marge' in July of 2018 with Carnivale Theatrics and ‘Mama’ in Front Porch Theatricals production of Bright Star.

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Currently, Katy is the special guest vocalist for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's Fiddlesticks Family Concert Series, a chorister in Pittsburgh Opera and is adjunct music staff at Point Park University, Carnegie Mellon University Pre-College program and Washington and Jefferson College. She is the soprano soloist at Rodef Shalom, Oakland, and the soprano soloist at Westminster Presbyterian church Upper St. Clair, PA. She is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Vocal Performance.