Bio
CYNTHIA KATSARELIS is Music Director and Conductor of Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra. She has conducted excellent professional, conservatory, youth, and training orchestras. As Conducting Assistant with the Cincinnati Symphony and Pops, Ms. Katsarelis worked with top conductors and guest artists, assisted with recordings for Telarc Records, and worked with James Conlon and the Cincinnati May Festival. Her professional activities include conducting the Buffalo Philharmonic, and the symphonies of Knoxville, Kansas City, Spokane, Flint, Georgetown, and the Columbus Women’s Orchestra. She made her international debut leading the Bourgas Philharmonic in Bourgas, Bulgaria. Ms. Katsarelis has served as music director of the Seven Hills Sinfonietta, Antioch Chamber Orchestra, Northern Kentucky Chamber Players, Dearborn Summer Music Festival, and Hillman Opera. 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. There, she was a dynamic force for education, creating and conducting dynamic Young Peoples’ Concerts, as well as implementing innovative musical programs for economically challenged children, public school students, and gifted young musicians. 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 is Guest Conductor at the Jefferson Symphony Orchestra in May 2023 and has guest conducted the Colorado Music Festival in their Young Peoples’ Concerts at Chautauqua in 2012, 2013, and 2014. In 2007, she 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 the Holy Trinity School of Music in Port-au-Prince.
Ms. Katsarelis studied Violin and Conducting at the Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University, earning her Bachelors and Masters of Music degrees. She was the first undergraduate ever admitted to the conducting program. At the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati, she pursued doctoral studies in Orchestral and Opera Conducting. There she served as assistant conductor for both conservatory orchestras and the Opera Theater. She has studied at the Oregon Bach Festival with Helmuth Rilling and also participated in master classes 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.
In 2017, Katsarelis enrolled in the DMA program at the University of Colorado at Boulder. There, she works with Gary Lewis, conducted the University Symphony Orchestra, University Philharmonia Orchestra and serves as a cover conductor for the Boulder Philharmonic.