Cathy Berberian
Catherine Anahid Berberian, also known as Cathy Berberian, (1925 – 1983) was an American mezzo-soprano and composer based in Italy. Born to an Armenian family, she grew up in Attleboro, Massachusetts, USA. She took classes in theatre and music at Columbia University, and went on to study music in Paris with soprano Marya Freund. In 1949 she went to Milan to study singing at the Milan Conservatory with Giorgina del Vigo. From 1950 to 1964 Berberian was married to Luciano Berio, whom she met when they were students at the Milan Conservatory. They had one daughter, Cristina Berio, born in 1953. Berberian and Berio were artistic collaborators during and after their marriage. He wrote for her Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) (1958), Circles (1960), Visage (1961), Folk Songs (1964–73), Sequenza III (1965), and Recital I (for Cathy) (1972). Following her death, Berio composed Requies: in memoriam Cathy Berberian which premiered in Lausanne on March 26, 1984.
Berberian worked closely with many avant-garde music composers, apart from Luciano Berio, also with Bruno Maderna, John Cage, Henri Pousseur, Sylvano Bussotti, Darius Milhaud, and Igor Stravinsky. She had an extraordinary capacity of using her voice in an ample range of styles and vocal attitudes. In her programmatic text “The New Vocality in Contemporary Music” (1966), Berberian outlines a new role for vocal performance in contemporary music. In contrast to traditional opera practice, wherein singers are mainly to produce beautiful tones, the New Vocality employs “the voice which has an endless range of vocal styles at its disposal, embracing the history of music as well as aspects of sound itself.” Rather, the singer should become the composer of the live performance and “use the voice in all aspects of the vocal process; a process which can be integrated as flexibly as the lines and expressions on a face.”
Berberian interpreted works by Claudio Monteverdi, Kurt Weill and many others. She is famous for witty recital programs, where she presented several vocal genres in a classical context, including arrangements of songs by the Beatles as well as folk songs from several countries and cultures. As a composer, she wrote Stripsody (1966), in which she exploits her vocal technique using comic book sounds, and Morsicat(h)y (1969), a composition for the keyboard based on Morse code. Her philosophy of vocal performance can be seen as fundamental to the development of vocal performance art as well as to the work of Meredith Monk, Diamanda Galas, Laurie Anderson, and countless other vocal performers and composers.
As of: September 2025