1925–2025
Cathy Berberian was a groundbreaking singer whose unique versatility, intellect, and legendary wit left a profound mark on the history of vocal music.
“What Berberian did was to make the unnatural natural. That she seemingly encompassed the whole world of singing and song was only a start. She also extended vocal techniques dramatically and thus the dramatic potential of singing. And she did all this with a sense of grace, humor, immediacy and grandeur never before found in the same vocal package.”*
Born in Attleboro, Massachusetts, in 1925 to an Armenian family, she traveled to Italy in 1949 on a Fulbright Fellowship to further her voice studies at the Milan Conservatory.
“There she immediately met and married Berio, who was a young composition student. Together they changed the course of music. Berio wrote various seminal works for her, such as the 1961 “Visage,” a pioneering tape piece that uses Berberian’s voice and electronics, in which she evokes every emotion for which the human voice is capable.”*
Often called “the Muse of avant-garde singing”, Berberian not only collaborated with and inspired composers such as Luciano Berio, John Cage, Igor Stravinsky, and Darius Milhaud, but also forged her own path as a composer and creative force, pioneering new vocal techniques and genres. Works like her own Stripsody (1966) showcased her playful exploration of onomatopoeia, while her interpretations of avant-garde compositions set new standards for expressive depth and technical mastery.
By blending “high” and “low” musical forms and embracing extended vocal techniques, Magnificathy, as Umberto Eco called her, asserted her creative autonomy and reshaped modern vocal performance, leaving a lasting legacy as a trailblazer in both traditional and contemporary music.
