Johan Michael Katz, founder, music director and conductor of The Barn Sinfonietta (formerly The Bande Bande), was born in the Netherlands and educated in the USA. He received his Bachelors and Masters of Music from The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Mass. His teachers included Walter Susskind, Noam Sheriff, Urs Schneider and Frederick Prausnitz for conducting; Alfred Zighera and Zara Nelsova for Cello and Ross Lee Finney for composition.
Johan has conducted orchestras in the US, Switzerland and the UK He was actively involved with the Kensington Symphony Orchestra in London, founded the Ann Arbor Chamber Symphony in Michigan and The ISA Brass in Boston. In his programming, he is dedicated to the performance of neglected masterpieces with audience appeal from all ages. The Barn Bande is the outgrowth of these ideas on a professional level. Johan and his family have lived in Oxted 20 years.
Email: johan@barnsinfonietta.org