Recipient of the 2008 Thelma A. Robinson Conducting Award, Katherine Kilburn has been assistant conductor of the National Repertory Orchestra, the El Paso Opera, the Hot Springs Music Festival, the Bowling Green State University Philharmonia, the St. Louis Symphony Chorus, Conductor of the Interlochen Arts Academy Wind Ensemble, music director and conductor of the Greater New Haven Youth and Chamber Orchestras, conductor of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Youth Repertory Orchestra, interim director of the Vermont Youth Orchestra Association’s Philharmonia, and guest conductor of the Lawrence University Symphony Orchestra.

Dr. Kilburn assisted Sir Simon Rattle for performances of Peter Grimes at the Salzburg Easter Festival, and toured with world-renowned clarinetists David Shifrin and Alexander Fiterstein. She has conducted numerous world and USA-premieres and has been involved in several premiere recordings including some on the Naxos American Classics/Milken Archive label. She has conducted in the Cabrillo Music Festival, the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music Festival, the Philadelphia International Music Festival and the Sewanee Summer Music Festival.

She is currently assistant director of orchestras at Michigan State University. She has served as interim director of orchestras at Cornell University, and at Kent State University, and previous to that she was on the conducting faculty at Baldwin Wallace Conservatory where she was also the composition program performance coordinator and guest conductor of the BW Symphony Orchestra. She has also appeared as guest conductor with Symphoria, the Mansfield Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Opera Theater, the Lawrence University Opera Theater, and the Green Bay Symphony.

She currently makes her home in Haslett, Michigan with her husband and their two children, Luana and Sebastián.