Kathleen Kajioka has achieved a reputation as a musical multilinguist, moving between worlds with agility and uncompromising depth. Kathleen appears regularly as a baroque violist and violinist with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, as a modern violist with the critically acclaimed Via Salzburg Chamber Orchestra, and as a Middle Eastern violinist with Maryem Tollar, the Arabesque Orchestra and Maza Mezé. Always open for a swing through the pop world, Kathleen has recorded for the likes of Jesse Cook, Luke Doucet and K-os.
Born and raised in Toronto, Kathleen pursued studies on scholarship at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, under founding Cleveland Quartet violist, Martha Strongin-Katz. Upon her return to Toronto, Kathleen immediately began performing with most of this city’s venerable classical music institutions; however, her restless curiosity has led her to develop an unusually broad musical range. The recipient of several arts council grants, her studies of modern, Baroque, Medieval and Middle Eastern music have taken her to the US, France and Egypt.
Through both her studies and her professional life, Kathleen has had contact with many of the world’s pre-eminent musicians, including Rivka Golani, Judy Loman, Anton Kuerti, Robert Levin, Bruno Weil, Edgar Meyer, the Gryphon Trio, the St. Lawrence, Colorado and Cleveland Quartets, Simon Shaheen, Björk, Olivia Newton-John, Smokey Robinson, and many more.