Katherine Walpole

Katherine Walpole is a bassoonist who grew up in Perth, graduating from the Western Australia Academy of Performing Arts. She completed post-graduate study on modern bassoon at the Hochschule für Musik, Karlsruhe under Professor Günter Pfitzenmaier, and baroque and classical bassoon at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with Donna Agrell.

Katherine has performed with ensembles such as the Sydney Opera House Orchestra, the Baden Baden Philharmonie, La Petite Bande, Ensemble Zefiro, Australian Brandenberg Orchestra and the European Union Baroque Orchestra under directors Sigiswald Kuijken, Phillipe Herreweghe, Alfredo Bernadini and Lars Ulrik Mortensen. She has taught at the Amsterdam Conservatorium of Music and Koninklijke Conservatorium in The Hague. Currently she lecturers in Historical Performance Practice at WAAPA, is on staff at UWA as a bassoon teacher and performs as a freelancer on baroque, classical and modern bassoons.

Katherine plays a bassoon made pre-1927 by Gustav Mollenhauer, in Kassal. The factory was destroyed during World War II and all records lost, but this bassoon is stamped “Cassal”, the pre 1927 spelling of the city’s name.