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Maureen Forrester (born July 25, 1930 in Montreal, Quebec) is a Canadian contralto.
She was born Kathleen Stewart and grew up in a poor section of Montreal. At 13, she dropped out of school to help support the family, working as a secretary at Bell Telephone. She was able to pay for voice lessons and gave her debut recital at the local YWCA in 1953. Her accompanist was John Newmark, and this was the start of a life-long collaboration. She made her concert debut in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Montreal Symphony under Otto Klemperer.
She toured extensively in Canada and Europe, making her New York debut in Town Hall in 1956. She became known for her performances of Mahler and for her great stamina, often giving up to 120 performances a year.
In 1986, she published her memoirs, Out of Character.
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