Kati Kyme

Director | String Ensembles

Kati's dedicated association with the California Youth Symphony has been a joyous and inspiring exchange. The String Ensemble Program has expanded to encompass two full string orchestras totaling to 150-180 players, and continues to fully prepare these musicians for advanced placement in the Associate and Senior Orchestras of CYS. 

Kati comes from a musical background: both her mother and father were violinists and teachers. She began teaching while she was an undergraduate at U.C.Berkeley, leading sectionals of the University Symphony once a week. She gained additional teaching experience while a graduate student at Yale University, acting as teaching assistant to professor Syoko Aki. She has held teaching positions at the University of Puget Sound, The Cornish Institute in Seattle and Sonoma State University.

As a violinist, Kati enjoys playing in small ensembles and is often concertmaster of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the American Bach Soloists. She loves chamber music most of all and plays regularly with Voices of Music where her performance of Pachelbel Canon has passed the 6,000,000 views mark on YouTube. One of her most treasured accomplishments is the formation of the New Esterházy Quartet which specializes in the music of Haydn and his contemporaries and performs concerts in Berkeley, San Francisco and Palo Alto many times a year. She has guest conducted the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra (PACO) and she was recently named Music Director of Berkeley Baroque Strings.