Amy Catron*

In demand from stage to studio, Amy Catron appears regularly as soloist, chamber, orchestral musician, and clinician. She is the principal cellist with Sinfonia da Camera and the Millikin-Decatur Symphony. She has played as principal cellist with Illinois Symphony and Chamber Orchestra.  She frequently appears as a chamber musician, both regionally and internationally. She has appeared as soloist with the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra (Florida), the Illinois Symphony Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia da Camera, the Millikin-Decatur Symphony Orchestra, the Illini Symphony at the University of Illinois, Olivet Nazarene Symphony Orchestra, and with the Baroque Artists of Champaign-Urbana (BACH).

As a solo and chamber musician, she tackles repertoire spreading from the Renaissance Era to contemporaneity. Her interest in early music led to performances as a viola da gamba player for the audio on Nicholas Temperley’s “The Whole Book of Psalms, Collected into English Metre,” and a fruitful collaboration with Illinois’s BACH Orchestra for many years. Ms. Catron is also an avid promoter of new music, having performed and premièred many works by living composers such as Robert Chumbley, Michael Schelle, Peter Michalove, and Carlos Carillo. She also appears internationally as a chamber musician. Her CD, Particles and Prayer won a Global Music Award silver medal in March 2019. As a researcher, Ms. Catron frequently publishes reviews for the American String Teacher’s national journal. She is particularly interested in how structures and influences of habitus affect democratic learning and recently presented at the 2021 International Symposium on the Sociology of Music Education in Norway. She continues to look for ways of disrupting her own habitus.

Ms. Catron has been on faculty and has performed at numerous summer festivals, including the InterHarmony Music Festival (Italy), the International Chamber Music Festival in Bulgaria (where she is Artistic Director), Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, Illinois Wesleyan Chamber Camp and Cello Camp, Bands of America Camp, and Illinois Summer Youth Music Programs. She also has held sabbatical replacement positions at both Illinois State University and Illinois Wesleyan University.  Before moving to Illinois, she held a position with the Naples (Florida) Philharmonic.  She has performed with many other orchestras, including the Florida Philharmonic, the Akron and Canton (Ohio) Symphony Orchestras, and the Richmond Symphony. Ms. Catron received her B.M. from Eastman School and M.M. from the University of Akron. Her principal teachers were Michael Haber and Pamela Frame. She has also advanced her studies at music festivals and in masterclass sessions with Paul Katz, Yehuda Hanani, Carter Brey, and with the Cleveland and Kronos Quartets.  Currently, Ms. Catron is pursuing a DMA in Music Education from Boston University and recently acquired K-12 teaching certification. She teaches applied cello, string pedagogy, music theory and aural skills, lower string instrument methods, university studies, chamber music, and is the string area coordinator at Millikin University.