At home in all kinds of repertoire, Katherine Kilburn has conducted in concert halls and distinguished music schools in Europe and the United States. Recipient of the 2008 Thelma A. Robinson Award granted biennially by the Conductors Guild, she has been assistant conductor of the National Repertory Orchestra, the El Paso Opera, and the Hot Springs Music Festival, and has guest conducted at the St. Endellion Festival in North Cornwall, UK, the Tonbridge Philharmonic Society in Kent, and with Opera by the Bay at the South Shore Conservatory. She is currently instructor of undergraduate conducting and score reading at Bowling Green State University, assistant conductor of the BGSU Philharmonia, and guest conductor of the New Music Ensemble. At the University of Michigan, she conducted the Campus Symphony and Campus Philharmonia Orchestras, and was guest conductor of the University Symphony Orchestra and the University Philharmonia Orchestra. From 2006-2008, Ms. Kilburn was Music Director and Conductor of the Greater New Haven Youth Orchestra and Greater New Haven Chamber Orchestra, which she founded, and was on the conducting staff of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Youth Orchestras. In 2007 she was Interim Director of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association’s Philharmonia. She has also conducted the Akron Symphony Orchestra and the National Philharmonic and Chorus.
Ms. Kilburn has also enjoyed engagements as a conductor of choral music, opera, jazz and wind ensembles, and musical theater, as well. In 2011, she conducted Sondheim’s A Little Night Music with the Bowling Green Philharmonia and the BGSU Department of Theater and Film. In 2010 she was Music Director and conductor of a very successful production of Falla’s opera Master Peter’s Puppet Show in Spanish with the celebrated Cincinnati-based MadCap Puppet Theater Company and the BGSU Opera Theater. She has conducted jazz ensembles, including a recital with saxophonist David Bixler, and shared a concert with Sir Richard Hickox in performances of Stravinsky’s Octet at the St. Endellion Festival in England. She was assistant chorus master for Sir Simon Rattle in London and Salzburg for performances of Peter Grimes at the Salzburg Easter Festival 2005. Previous to this, she also served as assistant conductor of the St. Louis Symphony Chorus and as language coach for the St. Louis Children’s Choir. In addition to conducting Ms. Kilburn has sung, toured, and recorded as a member of the London Symphony Chorus, the St. Louis Symphony Chorus, and the St. Louis Chamber Chorus.
An advocate of new music, Katherine Kilburn has conducted numerous world- premieres and has been involved in several premiere recordings. In 2010 she assisted in recordings of works by Steven Stucky, Elliot Carter, Marilyn Shrude, and Ray Lustig for the Voice of the Composer series on the Albany Record Label. In 2008 she conducted the North American premiere of Berio’s Chemin VII for the MACCM New Music Festival in Bowling Green, Ohio. For the Naxos American Classics/Milken Archive CD Series she assisted Kenneth Kiesler in the US with music by David Amram, David Schiff, Paul Schoenfield, and Abraham Ellstein, and in London with the BBC Singers, and singers from the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. Ms. Kilburn’s performance with the Hot Springs Festival Orchestra can be heard in the archives of American Public Media’s Performance Today.
Ms. Kilburn holds the MM in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Michigan where she studied with renowned conducting pedagogue Kenneth Kiesler. She also holds the MM in Choral Conducting from Indiana University and was a Durant Scholar and recipient of the Billings Performance Award upon graduation from Wellesley College as a Music and French major. Ms. Kilburn also studied conducting at the Conservatoire Darius Milhaud in France, and in the coveted Artist Diploma Program at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and is currently a candidate for the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree at Bowling Green State University in Ohio where she studied with Emily Freeman Brown. Ms. Kilburn has participated in Master classes with Michael Tilson Thomas, Marin Alsop, Leonard Slatkin, Christoph Eschenbach, Larry Rachleff, Gustav Meier, George Hurst, and Otto Werner-Mueller.