Ms. Katharine Austin

As the daughter of professional musicians, Katharine Austin grew up in a thoroughly musical environment. She holds a BA in Music from Mills College, Oakland, California, and pursued post- graduate work on her MFA in Electronic Media and Recording Arts at Mills, before taking a 10-year detour to become a sound recording engineer in Francis Ford Coppola’s movie studio.
Over 30 years ago, with the training, encouragement and inspiration of Caroline Fraser at the Suzuki Summer Institutes at Holy Names University, she began her long career teaching Suzuki piano lessons. For the past several years, she has enjoyed her spring season job, traveling around Northern California as a Certificate of Merit Evaluator for the Music Teachers’ Association of California. She serves on the Board of the Music Teachers’ Association of California, Alameda County Branch. In recent years, she has given presentations on piano teaching to both the MTAC, Alameda County Branch, and to SMAC-BAPB. Her students are the recipients of numerous prizes, awards and honors at local, state, and national levels.