Katrien Van Opstal graduated as a jazz and pop singer in Ghent (2009) and then specialized in jazz and vocal technique. In 2015, she earned a scholarship to study style, vocalese and lyric writing with her mentor Justin Binek at the UNT, Texas. She is a certified Estill Voice Training Master Trainer.
Van Opstal started in January 2018 as a researcher at the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp with the project ‘Style, Sound and Voice Production in Vocal Jazz’. This resulted in the development of the ‘Mixing Table Model’, a model to clarify vocal technique in jazz. The project continues in 2020 in ‘Clarifying Vocal Jazz: from insight to practice’.
Artistically, the last decennium was full of performances and projects. Van Opstal was the leading lady of the Triplettes, sang with many big bands and played with national and international musicians such as Hendrik Braeckman (BE), Roni Ben-Hur (NY) and Justin Binek (KA). For the band Centerpiece, she wrote lyrics to the music of Toots Thielemans.
