Katherine Needleman

Katherine Needleman joined the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as principal oboist in 2003, the same year she won first prize at the International Double Reed Society’s Gillet-Fox Competition. As soloist, she has appeared with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Albany Symphony, the Concerto Soloists Chamber Orchestra, the Haddonfield Symphony, the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia, in addition to her frequent appearances with the Baltimore Symphony. She has performed as guest principal oboist with the New York Philharmonic, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, New Zealand, and San Diego.

Ms. Needleman’s chamber music engagements have taken her to Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall, and the Metropolitan Museum in New York; Jordan Hall and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, as well as the Freer Gallery in Washington D.C. She has appeared at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, Italy’s Spoleto Festival, the Alpenglow Festival, the Newport Music Festival, and throughout Greenland. A participant at the Marlboro Music Festival, she has also appeared on two tours with “Musicians from Marlboro.”

Devoted to the music of our time, Ms. Needleman has premiered numerous works and has commissioned works by Luis Prado, Chia-Yu Hsu and David Ludwig. She gave the American premiere of Brenno Blauth’s Concertino and the West Coast premiere of Christopher Rouse's Oboe Concerto at the Cabrillo Festival with Marin Alsop conducting. She gave the premiere of Kevin Puts' oboe concerto, Moonlight, at the Baltimore Symphony's New Music Festival with Marin Alsop in June, 2018.

A Baltimore native, Ms. Needleman attended high school at the Baltimore School for the Arts but left early to attend the Curtis Institute of Music, where she was a student of Richard Woodhams. She is currently on faculty of the Young Artist Summer Program at Curtis SummerFest.