MORAN KATZ
Clarinet
First Prize winner of the 2009 Freiburg International Clarinet Competition in Germany, clarinetist Moran Katz performs extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia as a soloist, recitalist, and chamber musician. She has appeared as a soloist with such orchestras as the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (Zubin Mehta), the China Philharmonic Orchestra, the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden and Freiburg (Sylvain Cambreling), the Collegium Musicum Basel, the Albany Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Ensemble ACJW (David Robertson), Texas’ Midland-Odessa Symphony and Chorale, the Haifa Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Sinfonietta, and the Tel Aviv Soloists Ensemble. Her performance credits include the United Nations Hall (Switzerland), Palais des Beaux-Arts (Belgium), France’s Les Invalides in Paris and Palais des Fetes in Strasburg, “Les Musicales” Chamber Music Festival in Colmar (France), Roaring Hooves Festival in Mongolia, the Two Days and Two Nights Festival in Ukraine, the Jazz Bakery in Los Angeles, New York's Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Joe's Pub and Miller Theater, among others. She has collaborated with Ariel, Carmel, Contemporary, Tesla, Benaim, Old City, and Vogler String Quartets, as well as with artists such as Mitsuko Uchida, and Richard Goode, Vera Beth, Arnold Steinhardt, and Lawrence Power. Ms. Katz’s 2012-2013 season brings her to the Dominican Republic, Detroit, Denver, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and Oregon. She will solo with the Ridgewood Symphony and the Westchester Chamber Symphony Orchestras.
Following her third summer as a resident artist at the Marlboro Music Festival (Vermont), Ms. Katz’s 2011-2012 season included debut recitals in New York’s Merkin Concert Hall and at the Berlin Philharmonic Chamber Music Hall, as well as at the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society; Tours of Israel and the west coast; Chamber Music concerts with the Vogler String Quartet in Ireland and Germany; Appearances at Weill Recital Hall, Le Poisson Rouge, Trinity Church and Bargemusic, MoMA and Canandaigua’s LakeMusic Festival. She has been featured in the Freer Gallery (Washington D.C.), University of Maryland Baltimore County, Lenox Athenaeum (MA), Dame Myra Hess Recital Series in Chicago, Steinway Hall, Paul Hall & Morse Hall (The Juilliard School), WNYC’s Greene Space, Symphony Space, American Irish Historical Society, Kosciuszko Foundation, Rockefeller University’s Tri-I Noon Series, East Stroudsburg University (PA), Drexel University, Cornell University, Baruch College, Dartmouth College, and Skidmore College, as well as a nine-concert tour of the Mozart Clarinet Quintet in her native Israel. In January 2010, following an invitation from Maestro Daniel Barenboim, she joined his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at its concert in Doha, Qatar. The following month, as an SYLFF fellow (and recipient of a scholarship from the Tokyo Foundation), she collaborated with musicians from the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. Thanks to the same foundation, she performed and taught in Japan’s Tsunami-affected prefectures in the summer of 2012. Active in the contemporary music scene, Ms. Katz has soloed with the New Juilliard Ensemble, as part of the FOCUS! 2005 and 2006 Festivals. In the summer of 2007, she appeared in the MoMA Summergarden Series in a solo recital. She often collaborates with the internationally acclaimed new music ensemble "Continuum" and with the jazz ensemble of pianist Uri Caine. She is also a founding member of “Shuffle Concert”, a newly formed audience-interactive ensemble.
In the recording arena, Ms. Katz can be heard on Albany Records’ “Brash Attacks” (all Richard Wilson CD) where she performs Timeshare with cellist Sophie Shao. This past summer she recorded music by Roberto Sierra and Ursula Mamlok, to be released in 2012 by Naxos. She has also recorded for John Zorn’s Tzadik label.
In addition to First Prize in the 2009 Freiburg International Clarinet Competition, Ms. Katz is the winner of numerous prizes and awards, including the 2010 Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, Second Prize at the 2009 Beijing International Music Competition for Clarinet; First Prize, and Overall Prize at the 2009 Midland/Odessa National Young Artist Competition (Texas); Third Prize at the 2008 Eastern Connecticut Symphony Instrumental Competition; 2006 Francois Schapira Prize for Woodwinds at the prestigious Aviv Competitions (Israel); First Prize at the 2004 Lions Clarinet Competition (Israel) and Second Prize in the Lions European Musical Prize 2004 for Clarinet (Italy), among others. She was also the recipient of the America-Israel Cultural Foundation grants with distinction in the years 1999-2008. Ms. Katz received her Bachelor’s and Master of Music degrees in 2006 and 2008 and an Artist Diploma in 2010 as a student of Charles Neidich and Ayako Oshima at The Juilliard School, New York, where she was admitted with presidential distinction and a full scholarship. From 2010 to 2012, Ms. Katz was a member of Ensemble ACJW and a fellow of The Academy, a collaboration of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weill Music Institute in partnership with the NYC Department of Education, performing chamber music at Carnegie Hall and bringing classical music to students in the NYC public schools.