KAY LOWE, soprano, has distinguished herself as a singer and actress with opera companies and symphonic orchestras throughout the U.S. and Europe, garnering the highest critical accolades throughout her career. Lowe received her Doctor of Music and Master of Music degrees from Florida State University. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the North Carolina School of the Arts and has studied at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Italy. Dr. Lowe has taught on the faculties of Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Miami. Her teachers have included Metropolitan Opera sopranos Rose Bamptyon, Licia Albanese and Elena Nikolaidi. She currently studies with Shirlee Emmons in New York.

Recognized for her performances of contemporary music, Dr. Lowe has sung lead roles in the world premiers of Iain Hamilton's Raleigh's Dream and Kenneth Wright's Lost Eden. Lowe has also commissioned and sung three contemporary song cycles, including composer Richard Bellack's Songs of Yuggoth , premiered at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall; Pulitzer prize winning composer Robert Ward's Seasons of Love, premiered at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall; and Richard Rendleman's Poems of Margaret Proctor Wood . Opera roles she has performed include: Margurite in Faust; Susana in Le Nozze di Figaro; Nedda in Pagliacci; Musetta in La Boheme; Fiordiligi in Cosi fan Tutte ; and Michaela in Carmen.

Lowe has been a district winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, a finalist in the Merola Opera Competition and has been featured frequently on the UNC Center for Public Television.