Kathy Judd has led a multi-faceted musical life as a violinist, violin teacher, chamber music performer, orchestral and commercial musician, and arts administrator.
Following graduate studies, she was a violinist in the St. Paul (MN) Chamber Orchestra with whom she performed in the US, Western and Eastern Europe, and former Soviet Union and was also a soloist. She was Concertmaster and soloist of orchestras including the The Las Vegas Symphony, Boulder (CO) Bach Festival, and the Nevada Chamber Orchestra. and a string contractor, lead player, and member of Las Vegas showroom orchestras for top headliners. She has performed in various orchestras, festivals, and chamber ensembles.
As a teacher, she was a faculty member at the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts, an international residential high school in California, where she performed as a member of the ensemble-in-residence, including a tour in Taiwan. She was Assistant Professor of violin and member of the trio-in-residence at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and taught as adjunct violin faculty at Elizabethtown College (PA) and chamber music at Temple University Music Prep. She has taught at music camps in Nevada, Vermont, California, and Maryland. During the 2024-25 academic year she was Adjunct Associate Professor at Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, VA.
As a supplement to her musical career, in December 2024, after 500 hours of training, she became a certified medical support hypnotherapist. Currently, she is studying the innovative Simpson Protocol, which facilitates a client-centered, private process where the client's own deeper mind determines the cause and solution to the issue.
As an arts administrator for over 25 years, Judd was Executive and Artistic Director of the Washington Conservatory of Music, a nationally accredited community music school (near DC), ending her tenure June 1, 2024. She was formerly Chair of the music department at Idyllwild Arts Academy (CA), and Artistic and Executive Director of Music at Gretna (PA), a year-round chamber music and jazz series presenting artists such as the Count Basie Orchestra, Nancy Wilson, the Shanghai, Borromeo, and Audubon string quartets, among others, and commissioning and curating performances. Judd has successfully written multiple grants and served as a grants panelist for a private foundation, state and national granting panels, and a visiting evaluator for a national arts accreditation organization. ​
She earned an undergraduate degree in violin performance from New England Conservatory and a 3-year Master of Musical Arts performance degree from Yale University, with studies at Wichita State University and at various summer festivals.
For fun, Judd once sold six one-liners to comedienne Joan Rivers and trekked to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. She has camped in the Amazon Rainforest, walked 100 miles in the Cotswolds, kayaked in Viet Nam, hoed potatoes in Scotland, hiked in the Himalayas, and ridden camels in the Sahara Desert.
