Westminster’s CoOPERAtive Program will offer significant scholarships for the first time this summer thanks to a recent gift from Truman Bidwell and the Katharine Bidwell Foundation for Young Singers.

Established and directed by Westminster faculty members Laura Brooks Rice and Christopher Arneson, The CoOPERAtive program is a three-week intensive opera program designed to assist young singers prepare for acceptance into advanced young artist programs. It provides talent assessment, nurturing and individual coaching focusing on operatic style, performance techniques, dramatic presentation, language and diction.

The Katharine Bidwell Foundation for Young Singers will provide funding for full and partial scholarships for talented students accepted into the program, which is in its second year. The Foundation is named for the late Katharine Bidwell, a member of the Westminster National Leadership Council and an ardent supporter of music, especially opera, and education.

Katharine’s husband Truman Bidwell announced the gift at Westminster’s annual benefit at the Racquet & Tennis Club in New York on December 4. He said, “I cannot tell you what joy it brings me to know that Katharine's memory will live on in this way. We are creating a small book about Katharine to give to each young singer supported by the program so that they may hopefully gain inspiration from her enduring love of life and music. As she lives on in our hearts, she will now also live on in the voices and lives of young singers.”

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