Katrina Wreede, violist, composer and teacher, has been credited by jazz historian, Leonard Feather, with making the "only outstanding contribution to jazz on the [viola]." An eclectic and untraditional violist, she appears regularly with ensembles ranging from symphonies and new music groups to jazz, avant garde tango and gamelan. She has been soloist for the world premieres of two viola concertos as well as many other works. Her biography is listed in Maurice Riley's "The History of the Viola, Vol. 2".

Wreede's music has received awards and grants from Meet the Composer, the Gaudeamus Foundation, the Barbara Deming Fund, the Morton Gould Composers' Competition, multiple awards from the Composer's Guild Competition and most recently from the Hass Foundation Creative Works Fund to collaborate on an epic work based on the pacifist protest movement, "Women in Black". Many of her compositions are distributed internationally by MMB Music and Latham Music.

Wreede has taught both privately and in academic settings, including Santa Clara University, Independence High School and San Ramon High School. This year she is teaching music composition at Berkeley High School with a grant from the American Composers Forum. She has worked for the last 8 years with the Young People's Symphony Orchestra as viola coach and as director of their chamber music program. She also co-wrote and performs "Where My Home Used To Be," an environmental music and story-telling show for children, and she is the author of "Violaerobics-a Technical Workout for Violists". Since 1997, she has been a member of the San Francisco Symphony Adventures in Music Quartet, performing 100+ concerts a year for elementary schools, including some of her own works. Her most recent book, written for adult beginner musicians is "24 Diverse Duets for Beginning Students for Ages 8 to 88" which comes with a computer practice program from Virtual Virtuoso.

As a past member of the Turtle Island String Quartet, she appears on nine Windham Hill and Windham Hill Jazz recordings, including one gold record, as well as making frequent guest appearances on other recordings. With that group she played in 46 states and in 9 countries, appearing on CNN International, Voice of America and Newsweek magazine.

She also has 20 years experience with special event music in all styles, and has performed in diverse and unusual locations including fiddling on a roof, playing grand openings for a parking garage, office buildings, the San Francisco opera, a gazebo remodel, waiting for a train in the middle of a redwood forest, on the top of a mountain, at the beach, for several wedding proposals, dressed in an elf suit, playing for ambassadors, politicians, the First Lady, and neighborhood barbecues as well as traditional formal weddings, parties and corporate events.