Patricia O’Callaghan was born and raised in Northern Ontario. At seventeen she lived in Mexico for a year as an exchange student. It was there that she had an epiphany one day and decided she should become an opera singer. Up until that time she could not decide whether to become a rock star or a nun and she thought opera was the perfect melding of the two: all the discipline and undebauched life of a nun, but she would still get to sing. She trained at the University of Toronto and the Banff Centre for the Arts.In 1996 she got a Chalmer’s Grant which allowed her to stop waitressing and devote herself to music full time. Pulling in favours from friends and family, she made her first CD, Youkali. It featured cabaret songs by Weill, Satie and Poulenc - not quite opera, but close. She was signed to Marquis/EMI shortly thereafter. Following the release of her second CD, Slow Fox, her worldwide distribution outside of Canada was snatched up by Teldec/Warner. So her third CD, Real Emotional Girl, was released internationally, and she ended up touring her cabaret show around Europe and North America. She has just released her fourth CD, Naked Beauty, which is already receiving critical and popular praise.
Patricia does actually sing opera at times, mostly contemporary stuff. She has toured internationally in Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus and is appearing as Polly in Vancouver Opera’s production of Weill’s Threepenny Opera this season She recently appeared on jazz clarinetist Don Byron’s CD, A Fine Line, and has been touring with him as well. She’s also had the good fortune to appear in television shows, including the Ken Finkelman series Foolish Heart, her own Bravo! special, and the CBC/Rhombus special Youkali Hotel. Patricia makes her home in Toronto and feels pretty lucky to be able to travel all over the world, singing great tunes.
