Kate Arndt
violinist, educator, collaborator
About
Violinist Kate Arndt, from Boston, Massachusetts is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts degree under Ani Kavafian. Kate holds Masters degrees from Yale in both Music and Musical Arts and completed her undergraduate studies at New England Conservatory of Music under Miriam Fried. Kate has performed as a featured soloist with several orchestras, at venues such as Boston’s Symphony Hall, Fordham University and New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall. In recent years, Kate has been active in Europe, including participation in the Gstaad Menuhin Festival in Switzerland and in the Kronberg Master Classes and Concerts in Germany as an active participant. Kate also performed in the IMS Prussia Cove Masterclasses in Cornwall, UK. In the US, Kate has attended several prestigious summer programs, including Music@Menlo, with renowned artistic directors Wu Han and David Finckel, Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, performing alongside David Schifrin and Frank Morelli, the Taos School of Music, where she worked with the Shanghai, Miro, Brentano and Borromeo string quartets, the Perlman Music Program, studying with Itzhak Perlman, Catherine Cho, Li Lin and Merry Peckham, and the Sarasota Music Festival, where she was featured in 2019 as a guest soloist with the festival orchestra. In 2021, Kate received first prize at the CSU Bakersfield Competition for her recording of Michael Friedmann’s Fantasy for Solo Violin.
A passionate chamber musician, Kate has performed at venues such as Carnegie Hall, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as the Curtis Institute of Music and the University of New Orleans with her current group, the Vera Quartet. In addition to premiering a commissioned piece by Alexis Lamb on the Indian Hill Music Chamber Series, the Vera Quartet recently premiered a new work by Elise Arancio, in addition to performances at Music from Angel Fire and the Colorado Music Festival as a quartet-in-residence this summer. As a recurring artist in the Mellon Music Festival, Kate regularly performs in Davis, CA. Kate also attended the Four Seasons Winter Workshop at East Carolina University, where she collaborated with artists such as Robert McDonald, Ida Kavafian, Colin Carr, Misha Amory, Hye-Jin Kim and Ara Gregorian. Her former group, the Isolde Quartet, received an honorable mention at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition. Kate has collaborated with several existing chamber ensembles, including the Calidore, Callisto and Kodak String Quartets, and as winner of several chamber competitions, she was selected to perform as a guest artist with the Borromeo String Quartet and with the Boston Trio.
Kate’s academic interests focus on studying the contributions of women in classical music, an area she hopes to expand through featuring works by female composers in future performances.
Projects
Upcoming performances include:
October 6-11 Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Retreat, Clark Arts Center, Shelter Island, NY
October 13 VISION Collective, Broadway Presbyterian Church, New York, NY
October 15-16 Princeton Symphony Orchestra, Richardson Auditorium, Princeton, NJ
October 22 Bard College Conservatory of Music US-China Music Institute, Alice Tully Hall, New York, NY
October 28 VISION Collective, Spectrum, Red Hook, NY
November 13 Washington Performing Arts, Music in the Country Series, Washington, DC
November 18-20 Curtis Opera, Turn of the Screw, feat. Vera String Quartet, Philadelphia Film Center, Philadelphia, PA
December 3 World Premiere of Elise Arancio’s commissioned work for the Vera String Quartet at the Curtis Institute of Music, Field Hall, Philadelphia, PA
March 29 Kallos Chamber Music Series, New Haven, CT