Cynthia Katsarelis

CYNTHIA KATSARELIS is the Music Director and Conductor of Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra. PMC, based in Boulder, Colorado, USA, is a professional chamber orchestra with a mission that includes presenting high-quality performances of classic, contemporary, and diverse music by underrepresented composers. Under Ms. Katsarelis’s leadership, PMC has presented numerous world and regional premieres, commissioning 11 works by established and emerging composers and presenting the regional premieres of works by Jennifer Higdon, Gabriela Lena Frank, Cindy McTee, Jessica Montgomery, Philip Glass, John Adams, and Osvaldo Golijov. She is very passionate about new and diverse music because of its capacity to speak to our time and because we need inclusion for true artistic excellence — to experience the full range of the human condition and musical expression.

As a Conducting Assistant with the Cincinnati Symphony, Pops, and May Festival, Ms. Katsarelis assisted Jesús López-Cobos, James Conlon, Erich Kunzel, Keith Lockhart, and numerous soloists and guest conductors, as well as assisting on recordings for Telarc Records. Her professional activities include conducting the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Colorado Music Festival, and the symphonies of Kansas City, MS; Spokane, WA, Flint, MI; Georgetown, D.C.; and the Columbus Women’s Orchestra, OH. She made her international debut leading the Bourgas Philharmonic in Bourgas, Bulgaria. Critical reviews have praised her work as “a model of precision and spirit.”

A pioneer for professional women conductors, Ms. Katsarelis served as Associate Conductor with the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra (North Carolina) and Music Director of the Greensboro Symphony Youth Orchestra. Ms. Katsarelis charmed audiences in her appearances leading the Greensboro Symphony Pops and the Greensboro Ballet’s production of the Nutcracker and their parody The Cracked Nut. In Colorado, Ms. Katsarelis has guest conducted the Colorado Music Festival in their Young Peoples’ Concerts at Chautauqua and assisted Michael Christie and the CMF orchestra by conducting the offstage brass in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, the Resurrection. For three summers, she conducted the Young Artist Seminar at Rocky Ridge Music Center. Working with the Loveland Opera Theatre, Ms. Katsarelis led performances of Hansel and Gretel, HMS Pinafore, and La Boheme. She has conducted the Longmont Ballet in the Nutcracker with the professional Longmont Ballet Chamber Orchestra.

Ms. Katsarelis’ commitment to working with young musicians has taken her to Haiti since the fall of 2004 to guest conduct the Orchestre Philharmonique Sainte Trinité, Les Petits Chanteurs, and teach at L’École de Musique Sainte Trinité in Port-au-Prince.

Ms. Katsarelis studied Violin and Conducting at the Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University, earning her Bachelors's and Masters of Music degrees. She was the first undergraduate admitted to the conducting program. At the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, she pursued graduate studies in Orchestral and Opera Conducting. There she served as assistant conductor for both orchestras and the Opera Theater. At the University of Colorado, she conducted both orchestras and studied with Gary Lewis. She has studied at the Oregon Bach Festival with Helmuth Rilling and also participated in masterclasses led by Neema Jarvi, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kenneth Kiesler, Yoel Levi, and Marin Alsop. She began her professional career at the age of 18 as a section violinist in the Florida Orchestra.