Meet GTCYS Staff Members
Amir Kats, Artistic Director
Now in his second year with GTCYS, Amir Kats (Artistic Director & Symphony conductor) recently created a music blog (www.mrkatsopus.blogspot.com) to make orchestral music more accessible. A familiar figure in the youth orchestra world, he previously conducted the Albuquerque Youth Symphony and Santa Fe Youth Symphony in New Mexico, where he was active as a conductor, educator and clarinetist throughout the state. Prior to New Mexico he lived in New York, serving as music director of the Gemini Youth Orchestras (Long Island), assistant conductor of the New York Youth Symphony, and faculty member of The Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program, teaching inner-city public school students. He has also been associated with the Philadelphia Sinfonia Chamber Orchestra and the orchestra of the Rockland Summer Institute. Mr. Kats spent the summer of 2005 on the conducting faculty of the internationally-renowned Interlochen Arts Camp, and joined the faculty of the Allegro Orchestra Camp in 2008.
Mr. Kats holds Bachelor of Music degrees in clarinet and music theory from the University of Michigan, Master of Music degrees in conducting and clarinet from Florida State University, and an Artist Diploma from the Curtis Institute of Music, where he held a Leopold Stokowski Fellowship and studied conducting with Otto-Werner Mueller. A native of Haifa, Israel, he was raised in the United States in a musical family, the son and grandson of pianists.