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Photo: Polyphonic Pictures

Katharine Parton is an award-winning researcher, conductor and composer. Her compositions confront the physicality of bodily action and synaesthetic experience to create works which challenge the image of the self and push the boundaries of the senses. Shortly after her professional debut as a conductor Parton was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Despite eventually returning to professional conducting, including as Director of Music and Bye-Fellow at Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, Parton began to channel her musical activity into composition in response to the physical limitations imposed by the disease. She transforms sounds from the natural and built environments into beautifully lyrical and excitingly rhythmic works about women's bodies, diagnosis and grief.

Parton often works at the intersection of language and music and has been particularly focused on choral composing. Her choral works often juxtapose texts by women with more frequently set texts and voices. Her works have been performed by groups including The Gesualdo Six, The Consort of Melbourne, BBC National Orchestra of Wales Chorus, Choir of Trinity College Melbourne, Salisbury Cathedral Choir, Chichester Cathedral Choir, Paragon Singers Bath, Bel a capella Sydney, St Catharine's College Girls' Choir Cambridge, Leuphana Chor und Kammerchor, Fitzwilliam College Chapel Choir Cambridge, and Winchester Cathedral Choir.

Alongside her choral works Parton has developed an interest in writing for strings. Her first work for solo violin "L'étang" was premiered by Fenella Humphreys during Covid-19 lockdowns on YouTube and was subsequently re-recorded with funding from the Royal Philharmonic Society UK & Harriet's Trust Entreprise Fund. Other works for strings have also been performed by Hannah Roper and the Frankston Symphony Orchestra.

Magnetic Resonance (2021) was Parton's first work for orchestra and explicitly engages with the process of diagnosis using the sounds of an MRI machine to explore the processes of grief and acceptance. It was first performed in Germany by the Leuphana Orchester (dir. Rebecca Lang).

Parton completed undergraduate and postgraduate studies in music at the University of Melbourne where her teachers included Robert Schubert and John Hopkins. Awarded a PhD from the University of Melbourne, Parton's research focuses on the relationships between gesture, ways of knowing (epistemics), social interaction, cognition and musical creativity.

Her PhD included a period as a Visiting Student at the University of Cambridge in the Faculty of Music where she was supervised by Professor John Rink. Her work on gesture and cognition was supervised by Associate Professor Barbara F. Kelly.

Biography provided by the composer — current to July 2024