Katherine Potter (formally Corecig) is a freelance violist and composer/arranger with an interesting musical background. After beginning violin lessons at the age of three with Daphne Murnane, Katherine received a fairly traditional classical violin education. During her high school years she fell in love with jazz and became immersed in this idiom, having lessons and mentorship from saxophonist and composer Kevin Fenner. Katherine went on to complete a Bachelor of Music in jazz performance at the WA Academy of Performing Arts, switching her attention to the viola during the first year of this degree, with principal tutor guitarist Ray Walker. She then went back to her musical ‘roots’, embarking on a Bachelor of Music degree in classical viola performance at the University of Western Australia, from which she graduated with First-Class Honours in 2010 under the tutelage of Tzvi Friedl.

A keen chamber musician, Katherine has been a member of the Sartory String Quartet since its formation in 2003 and has enjoyed taking part in several other chamber ensemble incarnations on both modern and baroque viola. As an orchestral player, Katherine performs as a casual violist with the WA Symphony Orchestra and has performed in both principal and rank and file positions in the WA Philharmonic Orchestra, Juniper Chamber Orchestra, Australian Opera Studio Orchestra and several others. She was a 2006 Australian Chamber Orchestra Emerging Artist and part of the ‘ACO2’ and has performed frequently as Principal Violist with the new Perth Symphony Orchestra. 

Katherine's new soundtrack for Buster Keaton’s silent feature length film ‘The General’ premiered live to a screening as part of the 2009 Revelation Perth International Film Festival with her ensemble ‘Viola Dana’. Passacaglia, a companion piece for Kirsten Lepore’s short film ‘Bottle’, was premiered in 2011 by the Frederick Irwin Anglican School String Orchestra and Guitar Quintet. Degustation: seven courses for solo viola  was published in late 2011, following its premiere as part of the inaugural Grove Classics concert series. Katherine penned music for viola, cello and didgeridoo for the dance production Sound may be the last sense to leave us, directed by Helen Duncan and commissioned by the City of Mandurah for their 2012 Stretch Festival. Katherine revelled in composing more soundtracks for Viola Dana, for silent films including Buster Keaton’s Sherlock, Jr in 2012, and Murnau’s Nosferatu in 2014 in collaboration with Viola Dana drummer Pete Guazzelli. Katherine was invited to re-orchestrate her soundtrack for Sherlock, Jr for the Albany Sinfonia featuring members of Viola Dana; this was premiered at the Albany Entertainment Centre in 2017.

Katherine was made a recipient of a WA Department of Culture and the Arts 'Development' grant for 2012, which enabled her to produce a recorded portfolio of many of her compositions including Degustation, Passacaglia, excerpts from Sound may be the last sense to leave us and her string quartet Sketches of Twisted River, inspired by the opening chapter of John Irving's novel 'Last Night in Twisted River'. Together with an Australia Council for the Arts 'Artstart' grant for 2012-13, this funding also enabled her to showcase these compositions at the Ellington Jazz Club in Perth, Western Australia, including presenting the premiere performance of Sketches of Twisted River  by the Sartory String Quartet. 

In late March 2013, Katherine travelled to the USA to undertake a small number of lessons with Mr Atar Arad as part of her Artstart funded activities, and together with Viola Dana performed her soundtrack for The General at the Toronto Silent Film Festival, Aeolian Theatre,  Mayfair Theatre and the Belleville Library in Ontario, Canada and the Museum of the Moving Image and Goodbye Blue Monday in New York City. 

Katherine was again made a recipient of a WA Department of Culture and the Arts 'Development' grant in 2015, which enabled her to travel to Toronto, Canada to be tutored by the Cecilia String Quartet, Pocket Concerts' Rory McLeod and Toronto Symphony Orchestra Principal Violist Teng Li.