Category - Entrepreneurship

“Music and the arts can level the playing field for all people, no matter their social or economic background.”

Katie Wyatt is an accomplished musician, educator and innovator in music and social entrepreneurship. Katie co-founded and assumed the post of Executive Director of KidZNotes in July 2010. Including her work in El Sistema, Katie is a national leader in creating programs for access and opportunity for all children to experience the transformative power of music. She was a keynote speaker for the League of American Orchestra’s 2011 National Conference on “Creating an Environment for Innovation,” and has led seminars and consulted in music and social entrepreneurship nationally and internationally, including as faculty with the New World Symphony, League of American Orchestras regional seminars and at Carnegie Hall, the Panama Jazz Festival, the New England Conservatory Sistema Fellows program, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Academy at Julliard, and orchestras and youth orchestras across the country. From 2007-2009, Ms. Wyatt served as Director of Education and Community Engagement for the North Carolina Symphony where she created and expanded programs statewide that would inspire and captivate young audiences. Recently Ms. Wyatt was named as one of Musical America WorldWide's " 30 Under 40 Rising Stars of the Performing Arts Industry" and won the statewide 2012 “Young Careerist” award by the Business Professional Women of North Carolina. 

As an accomplished violist, Katie has toured and performed nationally and internationally with the orchestras of the New World Symphony, Verbier Festival Orchestra, Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Youth Orchestra of the Americas, and the Spoleto Festival of Charleston, S.C., in the major concert halls of the United States, Europe, Mexico, Central and South America, China, Japan, and Taiwan. As an educator, she's coached North Carolina statewide strings competitions, maintains a private studio, and served as Adjunct Professor of Viola at N.C. State University from 2007-2009. Her call to leadership in social justice through the arts was inspired by YOA’s joint performances with Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Orchestra of Caracas, Venezuela in 2005. The power and success of El Sistema moved her to begin channeling her passion for music to benefitting communities and positively affecting social change. Wyatt speaks Spanish and French and holds bachelor degrees in Political Science and Viola Performance from Indiana University and a Master’s Degree in Viola Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Katie lives and works in Durham, NC and locally has enjoyed performing in the orchestras of Fayetteville and Durham, chamber music with her quartet, with the indie folk-rock chamber orchestra Lost in the Trees, and the indian-bluegrass fusion band Hindugrass.