Born in England, Catherine Louise Geach began studying violin and classical ballet at the age of four, giving her first public performance a year later. She studied with Bernard Blay and Caroline Lamont before entering the conservatory. As a soloist with chamber ensembles and symphony orchestras, she gave her first masterclass at the age of five with Professor David Takeno (Guildhall School of Music), followed by studies from ages eight to fifteen with Professor Felix Andrievsky (Yehudi Menuhin School and Royal College of Music). At sixteen, she performed Elgar’s Violin Concerto as soloist at London’s Purcell Room.
At fifteen, Catherine won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she studied violin with Professors Maurice Hasson and Xue Wei, and participated in masterclasses with Professor Zakhar Bron (Moscow Conservatory). She later performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto and also pursued studies in voice and piano, perfecting her singing technique in Italy as a light coloratura soprano specializing in Early Music.
In 1990, at the age of eighteen, Catherine traveled to Cambodia during the civil war to compile a report on human rights violations by the Khmer Rouge. Entitled The Aid and War Report, her documentation—recognized with the Bernard Brett Peace Bequest (London)—was instrumental in demonstrating to the international community that the Khmer Rouge should not be seated at the United Nations. This report is now archived at the Cambodian Documentation Center for the Cambodian Genocide.
At the request of the Cambodian Ministry of Culture, Catherine also gave concerts and taught violin at the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh, following the loss of nearly 90% of Cambodia’s artists during the genocide. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in 1991, she returned to Cambodia to continue teaching, having previously studied Khmer at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
In 1994, amid the ongoing civil war, Catherine founded and built the Kampot Traditional Music School for Orphaned and Disabled Children (Khmer Cultural Development Institute) in Kampot Province, with the mission of reviving and preserving traditional Cambodian music and culture while caring for vulnerable children. As its founder and long-time director, she continues to support the school’s cultural and humanitarian programs entirely as a volunteer.
From 1996 to 1998, she established a Music, Dance, and Art Therapy Program at Mesa Selimović Primary School in Sarajevo, Bosnia, for children suffering from PTSD in the aftermath of war. The program became a permanent part of the school curriculum, sustained by local Bosnian educators.
Catherine has translated and edited a book on Cambodian musical instruments for UNESCO and written extensively on the Cambodian War and Genocide in publications such as The Tablet. Her school received the UNESCO World Decade of Cultural Development Award (Paris, 1995), and she herself was honored with the Raoul Wallenberg Humanitarian Award (New York, 1999). She has lectured for UNESCO (Stockholm) and at Somerville College, Oxford University, on The Child’s Right to Culture and The Healing Power of Music.
As a concert violinist, soprano, and recording artist, Catherine has performed internationally, including for the late Pope John Paul II at St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City. She also performed as a Cambodian Apsara dancer at the Théâtre Bastille and the Opéra de Paris while on tour with her Cambodian students. Her stage credits include both singing and choreography for productions such as The Fairy Queen in Amatrice, Italy.
Her solo album, A Wish for Love for the World (BAM Records, Switzerland, 2021), features Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin and sacred vocal works by St. Hildegard of Bingen. She has also appeared as violinist and soprano soloist on The Grey II–III (2021), Love Conquers All (2022), The MASS, and Embracing Sorrow (2022–23) by American composer Stephen L. Melillo. Their collaboration on Embracing Sorrow reflects a profound exploration of war, human suffering, and transcendence, inspired by Catherine’s volunteer work with the Ukrainian Diaspora in Rome.
Catherine’s humanitarian and artistic work has been featured in BBC and ABC Australia documentaries, and on BBC Radio, Voice of America, and South African Radio. Her story has been the subject of major press features, including the Sunday Telegraph Magazine (1995) and Reader’s Digest’s Music of Hope (1999), translated into sixteen languages and distributed in eleven million copies. She has also given numerous interviews in Khmer for Cambodian radio.