Katherine Johnk, Viola

Katherine Johnk, nicknamed Katie by her father, won a full-time viola position by audition with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, Italy under the direction of Riccardo Muti and then Zubin Mehta and lived in Florence in an apartment on the Ponte Vecchio. She is now based in San Francisco working as a substitute player primarily with the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra. She is a member of the Skywalker Sound Orchestra recording major motion picture soundtracks at George Lucas’ soundstage at Skywalker Ranch in Marin, California. She is also a member of the Symphony Silicon Valley Orchestra.

Katie has toured performing throughout Europe, Asia and South America with the San Francisco Symphony and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Orchestra. She was also on the faculty of the Asian Youth Orchestra coaching viola sectionals and chamber music, originally under the direction of Yehudi Menuhin. This took place in a different city each summer–Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Fukuoka, Japan. Conductors she has worked under include Riccardo Muti, Leonard Slatkin, Carlo Giulini, Roberto Abbado, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Joseph Silverstein, Myung-Wha Chung, Neville Marriner, Pinchas Zukerman, Michael Tilson Thomas, John Adams, Zubin Mehta and Donald Runnicles. She has toured and performed throughout the world in the great concert halls and music festivals of Manaus-Brazil, the Teatro Colon- Buenos Aires, Berlin-Philharmonie, Stuttgart, Frankfurt, Vienna-The Musik Verein, London-Prince Albert Hall, New York-Carnegie Hall, Berlin, Salzburg, Brussels, Amsterdam-Concertgeboew Hall, Hamburg, Dresden, Leipzig, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Carmel, Spoleto-Italy, Munich, the Grand Tetons-Wyoming , Aspen-Colorado and Key West- Florida.

Artists that she has performed and/or recorded with include Yo-Yo Ma, Emmanuel Ax, Itzhak Perlman, Nadia-Salerno Sonnenberg, Joshua Bell, Andre Watts, Gil Shaham, Vadim Repin, Maxim Vengerov, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Peter Serkin, Lynn Harrell, Alicia De Larrocha, Horacio Gutierrez, Frederica Von Stade, Carol Van Ness, Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, Rudolf Nureyev, Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, Henry Mancini, John Williams, Smokey Robinson, Barry Manilow, Mel Torme, Bobby McFerrin, Doc Severinson, Victor Borge, Led Zeppelin, the Scorpions, Burt Bacharach, Toni Braxton, Linda Ronstadt, Chuck Mansion, Al Jarreau, Barbra Streisand and the Zoe Deschanel/M. Ward duo “She and Him.”

Katherine has also been a member of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) appearing as a featured musician in television shows and commercials and motion pictures. She speaks German and Italian and some French and Spanish. She has also performed in all sixty six San Francisco public elementary schools through the San Francisco Symphony Adventures in Music (AIM) program. She has given over 300 performances with her string quartet ‘The Storybook Strings’ for school aged children.

Katherine arranges and performs special bookings for private events which include Christina Aguilera’s wedding, the Andre Agassi/Brooke Shields wedding and parties for Gordon Getty and Francis Ford Coppola. Other clients include Tiffany & Co. and Cartier.