A member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1989, Catherine Brubaker is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where she was a student of the William Lincer. Other teachers include Karen Tuttle and Masao Kawasaki. She is a former member of the Dallas and Seattle symphony orchestras and has served on the music faculty of Northwestern University, teaching orchestral repertoire for viola.
Among her performance highlights are serving as a soloist in CSO performances of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6. An avid performer of chamber music, she appears on the CSO’s MusicNOW and Chamber Music series as well as recent performances of Dvořák's String Sextet in A Major, Op. 48, and Mozart's String Quintet in C Minor, K. 406/516b, on CSO Sessions. She has been a guest artist on WFMT Chicago’s Live from Studio One broadcasts and on the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts series. Other guest appearances include performances with the Pilgrim and Rembrandt chamber players, Northwestern University’s Winter Music Festival, and the Civitas Ensemble. She also has performed as soloist with the Kenosha Symphony and principal viola of Music of the Baroque.
Reared in a musical family, Brubaker has siblings in the symphony orchestras of Minnesota, Houston, and Tucson. Both of her parents were active music educators in Arizona, where she grew up.
