American violinist Katherine Williamson joined the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra in 2013
and assumed the Assistant Concertmaster post in the fall of 2019. Williamson started her
tenure with the Orchestra as an Arts Partner with the Rockefeller String Quartet. With the
quartet, she was able to work throughout the state, performing classical music for countless
school children, playing in the oncology ward of the Arkansas Children’s Hospital, and
presenting numerous recitals to a variety of audiences across the state of Arkansas. Music has
taken Ms. Williamson from the rolling hills of the Meadowmount School of Music in New
York, to the mountains of Breckenridge, and to the Konzerthaus stage in Berlin, Germany.
She has played as a semifinalist with the New World Symphony, been an associate member of
the Chicago Civic Orchestra, and an extra with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. A
native of Saint Paul, Minnesota, she still maintains musical connections to her home state as a
freelance violinist with the Minnesota Orchestra and was in the violin section for the Mill
City Summer Opera through their 2019 season. Director of the ASO’s String Academy since
the summer of 2019, Williamson is deeply passionate about music education and public
service. She studied violin pedagogy with Dr. Brenda Brenner at Indiana University and with
Ms. Christie Felsing at the Suzuki Institute at Ithaca College. Ms. Williamson is a registered
Suzuki instructor, has maintained a successful private studio for the past 12 years, and was on
the violin faculty for UCA’s Community Music School from 2015 - 2017. Beginning in the
summer of 2017, she taught for the Sturgis Music Academy under the direction of fellow IU
graduate and the Academy’s Founding Director, Dr. Tze-Ying Wu. In addition to instructing
violin lessons, Ms. Williamson is dedicated to bringing chamber music to the young
musicians of Central Arkansas. Since 2017, she has been on the violin faculty for the
Faulkner Chamber Music Festival and is currently Board President of the Chamber Music
Society of Little Rock. Williamson also served on the ASO’s Player’s Committee as President
for two years from 2016 - 2018. Named “Classical Innovator” by the Arkansas Times in
2018, she believes that all Arkansans should have access to inspiration through the power of
world-class classical music. She is committed to this goal through her role both as an
educator and performer. Williamson earned a Bachelor of Music with Distinction from the
Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in 2012, where she studied privately with Mark
Kaplan and orchestral studies with Jorja Fleezanis and Alexander Kerr. She currently resides
in downtown Little Rock with her rescue dog, Bernie the beagle
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