Martin Katz

One of the world’s busiest collaborators, Martin Katz has been dubbed “The gold standard of collaborative pianists today” by the New York Times. He has been in constant demand by the world’s most celebrated vocal soloists for five decades, and has appeared and recorded regularly with Marilyn Horne, Frederica von Stade, Karita Mattila, Samuel Ramey, David Daniels, Lawrence Brownlee, Jose Carreras, Cecilia Bartoli, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Kathleen Battle, just to name a few. Season after season, the world’s musical capitals have figured prominently in his schedule.

A native of Los Angeles, his piano studies began at the age of five. He attended the University of Southern California and studied accompanying with Gwendolyn Koldofsky. More recently, conducting has played a significant role in his career. He has partnered several of his soloists on the podium, and has been pleased to conduct several staged productions for U-M’s Opera Theatre, the Music Academy of the West, and San Francisco Opera’s prestigious Merola program, as well as the NHK Symphony in Tokyo. 

The profile of Martin Katz is completed with his commitment to teaching. Since 1984, he has led the University of Michigan’s program in collaborative piano, and played an active part in opera productions. He has been a pivotal figure in the training of countless young artists, both singers and pianists, and the University has recognized this, creating the Artur Schnabel professorship for him. In addition to his work there, he is a regular guest at Sibelius Academy, San Francisco Opera, Chicago College of Performing Arts, San Francisco Conservatory, Tokyo’s New National Theatre as well as innumerable other schools across North America. Mr. Katz is the author of a comprehensive guide to accompanying, “The Complete Collaborator,” published by Oxford University Press, which is widely seen as the seminal work on this specialized subject.