Born in 1966 in Repentigny, Quebec, Canada, Karina Gauvin is the daughter of opera singer Lucie Gaudreau and a singer from the Choir of Saint-Laurent in Montreal. Immersed in operatic music from an early age, she studied singing at the Conservatoire de Montréal and received a scholarship to attend the Royal Academy of Music in Glasgow, Scotland.
Embarking on a professional career, soprano Karina Gauvin distinguished herself in singing competitions in London and at the Guelph Festival in Ontario, Canada. In 1994, she won the audience prize and the lieder category at the s-Hertogenbosch International Competition in the Netherlands, following in the footsteps of Elly Ameling, Thomas Hampson, and Lenneke Ruiten. In 1995, she was awarded the Young Artists Prize by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Signed by the Analekta label on the recommendation of harpsichordist Luc Beauséjour, she recorded the volume Little Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, which became the best-selling album for the Canadian company in 1997.
Since then, Karina Gauvin has performed on opera stages such as Covent Garden and Wigmore Hall in London, and St-Martin in the Fields, as well as at festivals, and has recorded numerous programs of baroque or romantic music: Christmas Images and Fête Galante in 1999; Canteloube's Songs of the Auvergne in 2002; Hyver: Les Boréades in 2005; Karina Gauvin Sings Purcell in 2006; Nicola Porpora: Arias in 2009. As a specialist in Handel's operas, she has presented several recitals dedicated to the composer (Handel: Arias, 2008; Handel: Streams of Pleasure, 2011; Prima Donna, 2012) and participated in recorded productions of Alessandro and Giulio Cesare (2012), and Giove in Argo (2013). In 2010, her repertoire expanded into contemporary music with Benjamin Britten's Les Illuminations. In 2014, the recital Mozart: Opera & Concert Arias was released.
Karina Gauvin regularly collaborates with the Orchestre Métropolitain, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the CBC Symphony Orchestra in Vancouver, and Les Violons du Roy under the direction of Bernard Labadie.
