Winner of the Jyväskylä International Tenor Competition in 2002 and the international Musica Sacra competition in 2003, he took the second prize in the Gösta Windbergh Tenor Competition in 2004. He was awarded the Martti Talvela Foundation scholarship in 2005, the Karita Mattila Scholarship in 2009 and the Jean Sibelius Birthplace Medal in 2011.

Katajala’s roles at the Finnish National Opera have included roles in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville (Count Almaviva) and Il viaggio a Reims (Conte di Libenskof), Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore (Nemorino), Mozart’s The Magic Flute (Tamino) and Così fan tutte (Ferrando), Verdi’s Falstaff (Fenton), Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (Rinuccio), Saariaho’s Adriana Mater (Yonas), Reinvere’s The Purge (Hans) and Britten’s Albert Herring (Albert).

He has made guest appearances in Mozart’s The Magic Flute (Tamino) at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, in Mozart’s Così fan tutte (Ferrando) at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale (Ernesto) at the Nationale Reiseopera in the Netherlands, and at the Norwegian National Opera in Oslo in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville (Count Almaviva), Donizetti’s Don Pasquale (Ernesto) and Richard Strauss’s Die schweigsame Frau (Henry Morosus).

Tuomas Katajala is also known internationally for his broad concert and oratorio repertoire; he has sung in over 80 oratorios, including all the major ones by J.S. Bach, Verdi, Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart. His discography includes a disc of Rossini opera arias with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Alberto Hold-Garrido.

His solo appearances at international festivals have taken Tuomas Katajala to, among others, the La Folle Journée festival in Tokyo, the Annecy Classic Festival, Auvers sur Oise, the Noirlac Festival and the Les Heures Romantiques in France, Musik på slåttet in Sweden with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, and at home in Finland to the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, the Helsinki Festival, the Naantali Music Festival, the Lahti Organ Festival and the Organ Night and Aria festival in Espoo.