Katherine Kyme

Baroque violin and viola

Kati Kyme enjoys a rich musical life full of chamber music. In addition to her work with AGAVE as violinist and violist, she is founder of and violinist with the Cantata Collective which has completed performances of 50 of Bach’s 200-plus Cantatas. She is founding member of the New Esterházy Quartet which specializes in the music of Haydn; the NEQ has given performances of all 68 Haydn Quartets twice. She enjoys frequent collaboration with Voices of Music and the Mark Morris Dance Company and has participated in festivals all over the world, including the Spoleto Music Festival, the Teton Music Festival, the Oregon Bach Festival, the Mostly Mozart Festival, the Caramoor Festival, the Ravinia Festival of Chicago, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, the Whidbey Island Music Festival, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, the Ryedale Festival in England, the Mendocino Chamber Music Festival, the Gualala Music Festival, the Valley of the Moon Festival, and has performed the complete Ring Cycle of Wagner as a member of the Seattle Symphony six times. She was founding member of the Artaria Quartet, the Sierra String Quartet, the Arcadian Academy with conductor/harpsichordist Nicholas McGegan, and Il Complesso Barocco conducted by Alan Curtis.

Her orchestral experience includes her three years as violinist with the Seattle Symphony, a couple of decades as violinist and violist with the American Bach Soloists and she has been a member and a frequent concertmaster of Philharmonia Baroque for many years. As a teacher and chamber music coach, she has worked at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the Cornish School of Allied Arts in Seattle, the University of Puget Sound and Sonoma State University. As a conductor, she currently leads the two string orchestras of the California Youth Symphony and the 30-member string orchestra called Berkeley Baroque Strings. She shares many musical activities with her husband, cello virtuoso William Skeen and they share their Oakland Hills home with two cats and a piano laden with violin and cello bows.