Hailed for her virtuosity and vibrant musical spirit, bassoonist Eleni Katz has established herself as a prominent soloist, chamber musician and orchestral player. Eleni is a winner of the 2022 Concert Artist Guild Competition and has performed with several of the nation’s top ensembles, including the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, the Sarasota Orchestra, and as a member of the New World Symphony. Other recent appearances include a 2022 fellowship with the Phoenix Chamber Music Society, where she performed alongside David Shifrin, Valerie Coleman, and Gabriel Kovach.
A classically trained singer from Iowa City, Katz has always believed that the bassoon should emulate the organic nature of the human voice. In 2021, she commissioned and premiered “Sea Glass Partita for Singing Bassoonist” with composer Lila Meretzky. Drawing its lyrics from a poem she composed, the piece interspersed bassoon performance with singing and visual projections. In her 2022-2023 concert season, she will premiere Marc Vallon’s “Vives-eaux,” another commission that blends voice and bassoon.
Throughout her orchestral career, Eleni has worked under Michael Tilson Thomas, Stéphane Denève, Marin Alsop, Thomas Wilkins, Susanna Mälkki, Christian Reif, Gemma New, HK Gruber, Christoph Koncz, Edwin Outwater, Roderick Cox, Teddy Abrams, among several others. In her most recent performance as principal of Sibelius 2 under Susanna Mälkki, the “excellent bassoons were standouts among spot-on orchestral execution.” Eleni’s festival appearances include the Music Academy of the West, Spoleto Festival USA, National Repertory Orchestra, Orchestra of the Americas, and the Norfolk and Madeline Island chamber music festivals. She was also a semifinalist in the Meg Quigley Vivaldi competition in 2019, an international concerto competition for young women bassoon players.
Deeply invested in musical collaboration, Eleni made her first appearance with the Willy Street Chamber Players in the 2022 season. She has also been featured as a guest artist at the Lake George Chamber Music Festival for the past four summers. Eleni has been coached by several leading chamber groups and musicians including IMANI Winds, Akropolis Reed Quintet, David Shifrin, Stephen Taylor, William Purvis, Wei- Yi Yang, Frank Morelli, James Ausitin Smith, Andrew Bain, and several others.
An enterprising chamber musician, Katz is a co-founder of the Marea Duo, a double-reed and vocal chamber ensemble. After the group’s 24-week virtual concert series during the Covid pandemic, the duo presented “In Natural Element,” a multimedia recital at Miami’s New World Center that featured commissioned works from underrepresented living composers and explored the natural elements of water, earth, and wind.
Eleni received her B.M. at University of Wisconsin’s Mead Witter School of Music under Marc Vallon. While there, she won the Irving Shain Woodwind and Collaborative Piano Competition and the university’s concerto competition. She earned her master’s degree at the Yale School of Music, studying with Frank Morelli. She was the winner of the Yale Philharmonia’s 2019 Concerto Competition, a finalist for the Eastern Connecticut Symphony’s Instrumental Competition, and recipient of the Thomas Daniel Nyfenger Prize for demonstrating “the highest standard of excellence in woodwind playing.” She currently resides in Miami, Florida. When Eleni is not playing bassoon or making reeds, she enjoys practicing yoga, cooking with friends, and looking for treasures on the beach.
