Eleni Katz

An Iowa native, Eleni Katz has always loved the art of performance and is a passionate orchestral player, chamber musician and soloist. Currently, Eleni is a first-year bassoon fellow with the New World Symphony in Miami Beach and is a finalist in the 2022 Concert Artist Guild Victor Elmaleh Competition. Ms. Katz is a substitute musician for several orchestras in Florida and the Midwest. She is currently on the Center for Musical Excellence’s Young Artist Roster and has performed in several chamber music ensembles throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. In March, Eleni was a fellow at the Phoenix Chamber Music Festival and performed wind repertoire alongside David Shifrin, Valerie Coleman, and Gabriel Kovach. Throughout her journey as an orchestral musician, Eleni has recently 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 South Florida Classical Review claimed that the “excellent bassoons were standouts among spot-on orchestral execution.” For the past two summers she has attended the Music Academy of the West and the Lake George Music festivals. This summer Eleni will attend the Spoleto Festival USA. Other festival appearances include: Orchestra of the Americas, National Repertory Orchestra, Chautauqua Institution, Brevard Music Center, IMANI Winds, Madeline Island and Norfolk chamber music festivals. Ms. Katz received her bachelor of music degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she was mentored by Marc Vallon. While an undergraduate at Wisconsin, she was a winner of the UW-Madison Symphony Concerto Competition. Ms. Katz subsequently continued her musical studies under the tutelage of Frank Morelli at the Yale School of Music, where she received her master of music and master of musical arts degrees. While at Yale, she was a winner in the Woolsey Hall Concerto Competition at the Yale School of Music, where she played the Weber Bassoon Concerto in F major Op. 75 under the baton of Peter Oundjian. She was also a semifinalist in the Meg Quigley Vivaldi competition in 2019, an international concerto competition for young women bassoon players. In 2020 Ms. Katz became the Co-Artistic Director of the Marea Duo, a vocal and double reed chamber ensemble, with her oboe colleague Amelia Merriman at the Yale School of Music. When Ms. Katz is not playing the bassoon or making reeds, she enjoys practicing yoga, cooking with friends and looking for sea glass on the beach.