A member of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1989, Catherine Brubaker is a graduate of the Juilliard School, where she was a student of William Lincer. Other teachers include Karen Tuttle and Masao Kawasaki. Brubaker is a former member of the Dallas and Seattle symphony orchestras. She has served on the music faculty at Northwestern University, teaching orchestral repertoire for viola.
An avid performer of chamber music, she appears annually on the CSO chamber series and MusicNOW, the contemporary music series. She has been a guest artist on WFMT “Live from Studio One” radio broadcasts, and the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts series. Other recent guest appearances include performances with the Pilgrim Chamber Players, Northwestern University’s Winter Music Festival, Rembrandt Chamber Players and the Civitas Ensemble. She has performed as soloist with the Kenosha Symphony and as 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 her parents were active music educators in Arizona, where she grew up.
She currently resides in Evanston with her husband Erik Snapp and their four children.
