Katerine Avgoustakis was born on September 16th in 1983. She comes from a very musical family. Her grandfather wandered in Greece as a troubadour. Her father Michel, to this day cannot read music but he has played the guitar to a high standard since he was ten years old. He played his first concert when he was thirteen and has never stopped since. Later on he moved his musical microbe onto his three daughters. Katerine’s oldest sister Coby graduated at the Conservatorium in Maastricht where she studied classical piano. And her other sister, Sophie, has played the instrument ‘till the age of thirteen. After that Sophie became a singer in a well-known cover band. Also Katerine’s second cousin Alice has an enjoyable voice and her brother Claudio studies drums at the Conservatorium.

Because music runs in the family Katerine was sent to the school of music for children, only accessible for children who have musical talent and Katerine was accepted. She repeatedly had excellent grades and Katerine’s technique grew to a high level. For that reason her piano teacher, Monique Aendekerk, encouraged her at the age of twelve to participate in a big piano contest, where unfortunately she narrowly missed the prize.

But beside the piano, Katerine also has another passion. Since she was only a child her dream was to become a singer but singing lessons weren’t in the picture. When she was sixteen Katerine took saxophone lessons for a while. She really enjoyed it but had to stop, as she didn’t have enough time, due to lots of out of school activities.

So as a little girl she participated in gymnastics to a really high level, and practised between thirteen and twenty hours a week. She was also a member of the youth association, chiro, where each week she ran and played. When they went camping Katerine always sung during the campfires.

When she reached the age of seventeen her piano teacher insisted that, like her oldest sister, Katerine entered the Conservatorium or Institution Lemmens. After a long time Katerine decided not to do it. Ever since Coby graduated from the Conservatorium she didn’t play any more. Therefore Katerine was scared that she may follow the same path as her sister and because she didn’t want to lose her love for the instrument, she decided to play it just as a hobby.

In primary school, a girls’ school, there was a choir and each week they would sing in church. Katerine’s sisters were also members and the three of them are the big key, the solo pieces were assigned to them and they easily sung in harmony together.

When Katerine was a young girl she was known in her community as ‘the girl with the voice of an angel’. When she was eight she became a member of the youth choir Cantate, where her sisters were also members.

At the age of sixteen Katerine for the first time sang on a ‘real’ stage, with a live band. She became a singer with a cover band that was well-known in the area. She liked it although she was really shy on stage! Her first concert she didn’t bare to look further than her feet but despite that still got the taste of performing! She secretly dreamed of a career as a singer but she was too shy to talk about it to anyone.

When she reached the age of seventeen Katerine became a backing singer with known artists, together with her sister Sophie. They took part in several concerts as backing singers, even for radio stations. During one of those concerts Katerine came to the notice of the manager of a girl band, Indiana. Coincidently they were looking for a third member and Katerine seemed to be ideal. So Katerine signed her first record contract with Universal. In 2002 Indiana participated in Eurosong and they didn’t go unnoticed, they even had a moderate radio hit with the song “Imitation Love”.

But Katerine didn’t like the music the group were producing so not even a year later, she took the courageous decision to leave the group and ended that part of her story. One positive outcome was that she realised she didn’t want to quit singing so she started to take singing lessons. By this point she was eighteen years old.

Three years later, in 2005, Katerine noticed a TV commercial for a programme that was looking for new singing talent. Katerine subscribed to the programme ‘Star Academy’, where twelve other candidates all placed all together in a house. They were given singing lessons, drama, dance courses, sports lessons, diction and there was even a mental coach.

The audience sent home one person each week during a live show, when each candidate would have to give their strongest performance. The program became really popular and the ratings rose week after week. For each live show the candidates would have to sing songs that were appointed to them. Katerine flourished as the weeks progressed and conquered the hearts of the viewers. For the first time she got to show her real musical roots and showed her true talent when she got to sing “I’ll be there”. During the live show she, for the first time ever, was able to display her talent playing the piano whilst singing.

Katerine won in the final and she signed the coveted record contract with Universal and a management contract with Live Nation, then still known as Clear Channel. Quickly after that her first single “New Day” came out which became a hit and also after that she maintained her audience’s interest. With her second single “Here Come All the Boys” she rushed into the charts again and she also chose a new image. Katerine made many hearts beat faster!
The name of her first album, Katerine, became an album with good pop songs. As a pearl on the album, especially for the fans, there was the track “I’ll be there”, just like she sang during Star Academy.

Katerine became known for her beautiful voice, strong numbers, sexy video’s and international allure. Her country was sat at her feet but she kept hers firmly on the ground.
Katerine stort zich na deze gebeurtenis volledig op haar carrière, muziek en haar optredens. Zo steelt ze onder meer de show op festivals als Maanrock, Paal op Stelten…

No one knew that her sweet mum, Tille, was seriously ill and barely three months after Katerine’s victory she lost her mother to cancer. It was a huge blow for the then only 21-year-old girl.

The news reached the front pages of the papers and many magazines and since then Katerine consciously chooses to keep her private life on health distant from the press. Following her mother’s death she completely committed herself to her career, music and shows, stealing the show at several festivals such as Maanrock, Paal op stelten…