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.
Forrester's studies with Bernard Diamant, whom she has acknowledged as her most important teacher, began formally in 1950 and later continued on a casual basis into the 1960s.
Forrester made her New York debut 12 Nov 1956 at Town Hall and shortly afterwards, at the request of Bruno Walter, she sang in Mahler's Second Symphony (the 'Resurrection') in Walter's farewell performances (17-19 Feb 1957) with the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall.
Forrester was named a Companion of the Order of Canada (1967) and received the University of Alberta National Award in Music (1967), the Council's Prize of the Harriet Cohen International Music Award (1968), and the Molson Prize (1971) awarded by the Canada Council for outstanding cultural achievement.
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