Katrien Baerts started season 2018/2019 with a re-invitation to the Salzburger Festspiele with Klangforum Wien performing the role of Sie in Begehren by Beat Furrer and continued with her debut as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte with Holland Opera. Baerts' concert repertoire this season includes the impressive Lonely Child by Claude Vivier with the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Köln, Beethoven's Incidental Music for Goethe's Egmont with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège and Dutilleux's Le temps l’horloge with Brussels Philharmonic. Further on Baerts will perform several chamber music concerts and recitals throughout Belgium and the Netherlands. The program of her worldwide acclaimed album of Alban Berg's Sieben frühe Lieder and the Maeterlinck Lieder by Zemlinsky with Het Collectief will return, amongst others to BOZAR in Brussels.
Baerts made her debut at the National Opera in Amsterdam in a new production of Lulu, and made her first appearance in Tokyo with House of the Sleeping Beauties by Kris Defoort. She performed several world premières at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, as Clara in Loevendie's opera The Rise of Spinoza and as the title role in Zuidam's Suster Bertken. In Jakarta, Indonesia Ms. Baerts created the title role in Prabowo's dance-opera Gandari. Further roles include Micaëla in Carmen, Amina in La sonnambula, Despina in Così fan tutte, Miss Wordsworth in Albert Herring, Stimme des Falken and Hüter der Schwelle in Die Frau ohne Schatten and Amore and Valletto in l'Incoronazione di Poppea.
Her concert repertoire includes Stabat Mater by Pergolesi, Bach's St. John Passion and Cantate BWV 202, Ein Deutsches Requiem by Brahms, Mahler's 4th Symphony, Les Illuminations by Britten and Mysteries of the Macabre by Ligeti, with orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Ms. Baerts has worked with conductors as Richard Egarr, Vladimir Jurowski, Oliver Knussen, Reinbert de Leeuw, Emilio Pomárico and Bas Wiegers. Her debut at the Barbican Center in London was enthusiastically received by the press.
Baerts is a graduate of the Dutch National Opera Academy and was selected to take part in the International Lied Masterclasses by Udo Reinemann and guest professors. She was a semi-finalist of the Queen Elisabeth Competition and obtained a Master's degree at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels in both voice and violin.