Kathrine Handford is a musician of wide-ranging interests and accomplishments. She has appeared in recital in the United States, Canada, England, Italy, France and Scandinavia where she has been a featured artist at international music festivals. Handford was the winner of the 35th International J.S. Bach Competition held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. In the same year, she received first prize in the John R. Rodland Scholarship Competition in New Jersey. She has received many grants and awards, including the National Endowment for the Arts and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
She holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Concordia College, St. Paul, and the Eastman School of Music, where she received the highly coveted Performer’s Certificate in Organ Performance. In 2020, she received a diploma in Recording and Production Arts from the University of Stavanger in Norway.
As a specialist in 17th century music, she has performed numerous recitals with the Swedish natural trumpet virtuoso Niklas Eklund and the Australian Baroque Brass. Her interest in new music has led to premieres of several new works for organ, including Stephen Paulus’ Toccata for Organ, Ketil Hvoslef’s Toccata for Organ, Robert Starer’s Angel Voices, and David Liptak’s Sonata for Violin and Organ, which was commissioned by Benedictinus 2000 and premiered in Rome.
For fifteen years she was University Organist and Lecturer in Music at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. Many of her students have received top awards and honors in regional and national organ playing competitions and have gone on to study at major graduate schools in organ performance.
She is chair of the program committee and sub-dean of the Twin Cities Chapter American Guild of Organists. She has served as a committee member of the National Young Organists Competition in Organ Performance (NYACOP), the premier performance competition of the American Guild of Organists. She serves on the board of the American Composers and is a member of the Artists Advisory Committee. She is co-chair of the North Central Regional Convention of the American Guild of Organists to be held in the Twin Cities in July, 2023. Presently, she is a professor at Concordia University, St. Paul and Director of Music and Organist at the Church of Saint Mark in St. Paul, Minnesota.
As an audio engineer, she records and produces many concert and CD recordings with her husband Bill Lund, an award-winning recording engineer.