Kate Caliendo

Katherine Caliendo enjoys a diverse musical career of symphonic playing, chamber music, recording, soloing and teaching. She is currently Second Horn of the Jacksonville Symphony and previously held Fourth Horn positions with the Houston Symphony and San Antonio Symphony. She is a frequent guest musician with groups including the Detroit Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, Charleston Symphony and others. As a recorded artist, she can be heard on projects with the Kansas City Symphony, Rice University Horn Studio and the Houston Symphony, including their 2018 Grammy Award winning live concert performance of Wozzeck.

During the summer Caliendo has performed with the Sun Valley Summer Symphony, Saint Augustine Music Festival, Bellingham Festival of Music, Festival Mozaic and the Tanglewood Music Center. An avid solo musician, she performed as guest soloist with the Charleston Symphony and in 2011 commissioned and premiered “Vanishing Points, Six Aural Paintings for Low Horn and Piano” by composer Stephen Bachicha.

As an educator, Caliendo is looking forward to being Adjunct Professor of Horn at UNF starting Fall of 2025. She is also an Artist Faculty member at the Round Top Music Festival in Texas and has maintained a private studio for over fifteen years. She is a regular coach for the Jacksonville Symphony Youth Orchestra and Douglas Anderson School of the Arts.

She has composed and arranged several books of sheet music for horn, including 18 Virtuosic Concert Etudes for Low Horn, which has been used as college audition repertoire. She is also active on social media as an advocate for musicians’ health and inclusivity in the music world.

A native of New Jersey, Caliendo was a student of Michelle Baker at the Manhattan School of Music and received her Bachelors and Masters degrees in French Horn Performance from Rice University. When not performing, she can most likely be found in the garden or traveling with her husband.