A Santa Barbara native, Kathryn Mendenhall has given solo and chamber music performances across Eastern Europe, Italy, Korea, and Indonesia. An avid supporter of new music, Kathryn was a long-time member of the Illustrious Theatre Orchestra, a composer-performer ensemble dedicated solely to the performance of modern and new works. Over the years, she’s performed for both Lynn Harrell and Yo Yo Ma, and studied primarily under Ben Hong, Bongshin Ko, Daniel Rothmuller and Geoffrey Rutkowski.

Kathryn maintains a cello studio in Santa Barbara, teaching privately and as a teaching artist for the Santa Barbara Symphony. She holds bachelors in both Music Performance and Physics from Cal State University, Fullerton, and a masters from UC Santa Barbara.