New England Conservatory
Paul Katz is best known as cellist of the legendary Cleveland Quartet, which over a 26-year international career made more than 2,500 appearances on four continents, including all the major music capitals, concert halls, and festivals of the world. The CQ performed at the White House and appeared on "CBS Sunday Morning," NBC's "Today Show," and in 1973, were the first classical musicians to perform on "The Grammy Awards." A one-hour documentary, "In The Mainstream: The Cleveland Quartet," was broadcast across the U.S. and Canada.
More recently, Katz was the central figure in Academy Award–nominated Director Josh Aronson's 2016 film "Talent Has Hunger," shown on hundreds of PBS stations in the U.S., Korea, Taiwan, and China, and now available on Apple, Amazon, and the PBS store.
In 2010, Katz launched CelloBello.org to build a global cello community and provide "all musicians and enthusiasts, regardless of location, race, socio-economic status, or ability level, access to the highest level of musical instruction, inspiration, and interaction." It grew to become one of the world's largest and most important free educational websites for strings, with 93,000 users a year. In 2025, he turned CelloBello over to Chamber Music America, which will carry it into the future.
Notable recordings include the Dohnányi Cello Sonata and the Cleveland Quartet's Sony recording of the Schubert two-cello quintet with Katz and Yo-Yo Ma. The Quartet's nearly 70 recordings earned 11 Grammy nominations, two Grammy Awards, were Japan's all-time best-selling chamber music release, and won "Best of the Year" honors from Time Magazine and Stereo Review. In 2025, Sony released a retrospective 24-CD boxed set of the Cleveland Quartet, including a complete Beethoven quartet cycle and all of their analog recordings from RCA Red Seal. Katz wrote the original liner notes for the Beethoven cycle, which were reprinted in this rerelease.
He hae has appeared in recitals in New York, Cleveland, Toronto, Detroit, Los Angeles, other North American cities, China and Taiwan. He studied with Gregor Piatigorsky, Janos Starker, Bernard Greenhouse, Gabor Rejto, and Leonard Rose, and at 20 was selected to play in Pablo Casals's historic 1962 master class in Berkeley.
Katz's honors include the American String Teachers Association's Artist-Teacher of the Year; Indiana University's Chevalier du Violoncelle; Chamber Music America's National Service Award; and an honorary Doctorate of Musical Arts from Albright College. He served six years as President of Chamber Music America, the national organization servicing the country's professional chamber ensembles, presenters, festivals, and managers.
Katz joined the New England Conservatory faculty in 2001, following five years at Rice University and twenty (1976–1996) at Eastman. He has mentored many leading string quartets performing today, including the Ariel, Balourdet, Biava, Cavani, Chester, Harlem, Jupiter, Kuss, Lafayette, Maia, Meliora, Omer, Parker, T'ang, Verona, and Ying Quartets. His cello students hold solo recordings on Decca, EMI, Channel Classics, and Sony Classical, and have served as principal cellists in orchestras such as Detroit, Los Angeles, Oslo, and Osaka.
Katz lives in Boston with his wife, pianist and NEC faculty member Pei-Shan Lee. He plays an Andrea Guarneri cello from 1669.
SummerFest home page
