| After an exciting and eventful career in New Zealand, top kiwi saxophonist and flautist, Kate Robertson is now based in London, England. | |
| Kate Robertson was born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1970 where she started playing the flute at age 11. By 16 years of age, Kate had passed her LTCL performers certificate from Trinity College London with honours and was starting to learn the saxophone. Kate continued with her flute studies at Auckland University studying Classical Performance Flute with German tutor Uwe Grodd, whilst beginning to perform jazz and popular music as lead alto saxophone with the Queen City Big Band with whom she toured NZ and Australia in the late 1980’s. | |
| After University, Kate pursued flute studies overseas, attending Master Classes and having lessons with Elena Duran, (Mexico City, UK), William Bennet, (UK), Zdenek Bruderhans, (Australia) as well as performing as 1st solo flute with the International Youth Wind Orchestra in Valencia, Spain in 1993. One year later in 1994 Kate was soloist and lead alto saxophonist touring NZ with the New Zealand Youth Jazz Orchestra, and was the winner of best young jazz musician at the Citizen Birdcage Jazz Competition in Auckland NZ. | |
| As New Zealand’s number one woodwind doubler, Kate has toured New Zealand and Asia with many first class International Musical Theatre Productions including, “Cats”, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat”, “Les Miserables” and “Porgy and Bess”. Kate has also performed with major International acts such as Ray Charles, Elaine Paige, Gene Pitney, and a large number of tribute shows including the British tribute to the “Carpenters”. With strengths as a doubler and versatility of musical genres, Kate can often be heard on television and radio in New Zealand, played the lead saxophone and flute of the television orchestra for TVNZ Christmas in the Park from 1996-2003, and is a regular member of “The Tommy Love Orchestra” and lead alto saxophone of “The Vaughn Roberts Big Band”. | |
| Kate has been a strong force in Classical and Contemporary music in NZ, touring several times for “Chamber Music NZ”, recording an album and touring with New Zealand’s premiere saxophone quartet “Saxcess” and with her own classical quartet “Under Construction” in 2002. Orchestral work has played a major role in Kate’s career and she has performed with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra on both flute and saxophone. In 2002, Kate was alto saxophone soloist with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra, along with Hayley Westenra, where she performed “Take Five” by Paul Desmond to an outdoor audience of over a hundred thousand. | |
| Kate has also influenced and taught many young students throughout New Zealand on flute, saxophone and clarinet, and has had much experience as a Big Band Director. Kate has also worked as a tutor on the “New Zealand High School’s Jazz Workshops” from 2001-2004. | |
In 2004/2005 Kate spent time touring New Zealand with the Musical “Evita” and performed at the Bay of Islands Jazz Festival before spending 6 months in Holland where she performed with the West Coast Big Band led by trumpeter Mike Booth. In 2006 Kate moved to England where she began depping in London's West End Theatre on shows such as The Producers, Spamalot, Fame and Guys and Dolls before taking over the 2nd Alto chair on Sinatra at the Palladium until it's closure in September. Following on from this Kate played 1st woodwind, (flute,piccolo, clarinet and soprano sax) on Porgy and Bess at the Savoy until it's closure in May 2007. |
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| Copyright © 2004 | |