Redland City is a Local Government Area of South East Queensland, spread along the southern coast of Moreton Bay covering 537.1 square kilometres (207.4 sq mi). Between the cities of Brisbane to the north, Logan to the west, and the Gold Coast to the south, it is part of the fastest growing area in Queensland and one of the fastest growing in Australia.^{[citation needed]}

The City had an estimated population of 127,627 in 2006, four times the number of residents it had as a rural community 25 years earlier. An increasing proportion of these new residents are retirees from the southern states of Australia.^{[citation needed]}

Redland attained City status on 15 March 2008, having previously been a Shire since its creation in 1949 from the former shires of Tingalpa and Cleveland.

Although most of the population resides on the main urban conglomeration based around the centres of Capalaba, Cleveland and Victoria Point, over 6,000 live on islands in Moreton Bay that are part of the City. These are North Stradbroke, Coochiemudlo and the Southern Moreton Bay Islands of Karragarra, Lamb, Russell and Macleay.

Karen Williams is an American concert and opera soprano. In 1985 she won the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions; making her stage debut at the Metropolitan Opera later that year as Serena in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. She sang that role at the Met again in 1989-1990. She has also performed Serena at Symphony Hall, Springfield with the Boston Concert Opera (1986), the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (1998), the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (1999), the Utah Symphony Orchestra (1999), and the Philadelphia Orchestra (2000) among others. In 1986 she made her debut with the Opera Company of Philadelphia as Amelia in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera.

In 1987 Williams was a soloist in Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conductor James Levine. That same year she was the soprano soloist in Leoš Janáček's Amarus and in works by Giuseppe Verdi with the Collegiate Chorale and conductor Robert Bass at Carnegie Hall. She sung under Bass again at Carnegie Hall in 1989 as Maria in the New York premiere of Richard Strauss' Friedenstag. In 1988 she performed the role of Donna Elvira in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni with the Florida Grand Opera. In November 1989 she was the soprano soloist in Verdi's Requiem with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra in Israel. She has also sung in concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and in roles with the Dallas Opera, the Dayton Opera, the Lake George Opera, the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, and the Pittsburgh Opera.