Biography
American pianist Katherine Benson is recognized as an important artistic figure of her generation through her “stunning” (ArtsKnoxville) performances and passion for arts leadership.
In demand as a soloist, chamber musician, adjudicator, and teacher, Benson has performed across the USA and abroad in Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand, with upcoming engagements in China in summer 2025. Highlights from recent concert seasons include Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 & 3, Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos, Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, and Clara Schumann’s Concerto in A Minor, as well as solo recitals in Michigan, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia, Washington, and North Dakota.
An avid chamber musician, Katherine is the Artistic Director and pianist for The Paramount Chamber Players (TPCP), one of the premier chamber music ensembles of the southern Appalachian Region and in its twentieth concert season. Since taking her role with TPCP in 2020, Katherine has organized and performed on over two dozen concerts with the ensemble.
Benson is deeply passionate about arts leadership and interdisciplinary collaboration, and her innovative projects have been sponsored by multiple grants from the University of Tennessee and Rackham College at the University of Michigan. In 2023, Benson co-founded the Knoxville International Piano Festival and Competition, attracting hundreds of young pianists over the last three years. In another recent project exploring the intersections of artistic media, Benson commissioned seven new pieces of art from graduate and undergraduate visual art students, each new work created directly in response to a solo piano piece. Her work on interdisciplinary studies was featured in a lecture titled Painting Sound: A Case Study in Fostering Creativity and Collaboration Across the Arts presented at the 2023 National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy and the 2025 College Music Society National Conference.
She has additionally garnered numerous triumphs in over a dozen international and national piano competitions, having won top prizes and recognitions in the Heida Hermanns, Seattle, Kerikeri, Walled City Music, Teresa Carreño, and Thousand Islands International Piano Competitions.
She holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, Northwestern University, and a DMA from the University of Michigan, and her teachers have included Nelita True, James Giles, Chih-long Hu, and Arthur Greene.
Starting in Fall 2025, she will serve on the faculty of Penn State as Assistant Professor of Piano. She previously served as faculty at the University of Tennessee Knoxville from 2022-2025.