About
Biography
Katherine is a violinist in the Sarasota Orchestra and the founder of the Katherine B. Violin Academy, where she maintains a studio of about 30 private violin students from around the world, both virtually and in person. She has enjoyed serving as concertmaster and in the violin section of numerous orchestras in New Jersey, Philadelphia, Chicago, Italy, Florida, and Georgia including the Atlanta Symphony, the Naples Philharmonic, the Florida Orchestra, the Jacksonville Symphony, the Southwest Florida Symphony, and several others. Her playing was described by the Palm Beach Arts Paper as “lovely, poised and accomplished”.
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Throughout her career, Katherine has had the privilege of performing in such concert halls as Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall (NYC), the Kennedy Center (DC), the Chicago Symphony Center, Kimmel Center’s Verizon Hall and Perelman Theater (Philadelphia), and the Adrienne Arsht Center (Miami). During her summers, she has performed in prominent music festivals in Italy, Colorado, Philadelphia, St. Louis, New York, Florida and Kansas. In addition to her private teaching studio, she currently serves as Artist Faculty at the Dali Quartet International Music Festival in Philadelphia and the Porterville Strings Summer Workshop in California.
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Also an avid chamber musician, her string quartet won first prize in the 2016 Lyric Chamber Music Society of New York competition and gave their New York City debut concert in May 2017. She has been mentored by the Penderecki Quartet, the Atrium Quartet, the Arianna Quartet and the Dali Quartet and by members of the Cavani and Bergonzi Quartets.
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Originally from Cherry Hill, NJ, a suburb of Philadelphia, Katherine began playing the violin at age 10. She went on to make her solo debut at age 15 performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the Ocean City Pops Orchestra and has since appeared as soloist with various other orchestras. In 2010 she was awarded the NJ Governor’s Award in Arts and Education and the same year, the mayor of Cherry Hill proclaimed April 12th “Katherine Baloff Day” in honor of her contributions to the community and representation of her hometown in several local and national orchestra competitions.
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Katherine earned her Master’s Degree and Professional Performance Certificate in violin performance at the Lynn Conservatory of Music in Boca Raton, Florida with Tchaikovsky International Competition winner Elmar Oliveira and earned her Bachelor’s Degree from DePaul University’s School of Music in Chicago, where she studied with three-time international competition gold medal winner, Ilya Kaler. She currently plays on a 2004 Benjamin Ruth violin.
Get to Know Me
Fun Facts
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Most of my friends and colleagues call me "Kat".
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April 12th is officially "Katherine Baloff Day" in my hometown. The mayor named the day after me when I was a junior in high school after I won the Concertmaster position in the State Orchestra.
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During the pandemic, I helped hundreds of students from all over the world start learning the violin through virtual group classes
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In addition to classical performances, I have toured with stars like Josh Groban, Andrea Bocelli and Michael Bublé. I was also a principal violinist on the final Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience tour.
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I come from a musical family. My mother was a violinist, my brother is a violist, and both my husband and his identical twin brother are also professional violinists. My dad can kind of play the guitar but is also the world's best audience member :)
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Before I started getting serious about the violin as a child, I was an avid tennis player.
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I absolutely love animals and currently have a cat and two rambunctious kittens and plans to adopt a dog in the near future! Throughout my childhood I had two cats, three dogs, three hamsters, two parrots, a lizard, a dozen finches and various fish.
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I love cooking and baking, but mostly eating. There is *almost* no food I don't like or won't try at least once.
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