Violinist Katherine Button grew up knowing she was a musician, thanks to her parents, who recognized and fostered her musical abilities. Steeped in the Bach Cantatas that her mezzo-soprano mother sang with the San Francisco Bach Choir and San Francisco Symphony Chorus, it was only natural that her first professional job, at age 17, was playing for the Bach Choir as her teacher, Felix Khuner, sat next to her on the first stand and her mother sang. A generation later, Katie's oldest son, Karl, was all of eight when he sang in a Bach festival choir of men and boys while she played in the orchestra. "One of the best moments of my life!" she exclaims.

If her parents laid the foundation for Katie's musical career, it was chamber music that ignited the flame, playing string quartets with her friends in high school. The passion and commitment to a professional career came in her freshman year at Mills College, where Colin Hampton, of the Griller Quartet, was her coach. Mills College had a January term, which allowed students to pursue a single subject in depth for the month. Katie's month was spent rehearsing and performing piano trios of Brahms and Beethoven. The pianist in that group, Betty Woo, joined with the Temescal Quartet in 2010 to perform the Brahms Piano Quintet.

Katie spent a year in London at the Royal College of Music, on Hampton's recommendation. She says the highlights were when her friends dropped by to read chamber works. She lived a few blocks away from the College, with the local pub and tube stop just down the street - very convenient for impromptu chamber music fests! She fondly remembers playing such works as Brahms' String Sextet (performed by the Temescal Quartet and friends in July 2011), and the quartets of Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert for the first time in that basement flat. Her London collaborator and room-mate became a life-long friend, and Katie joined her for the Berrow Chamber Music Festival she directed in Somerset, England, in the years 2000-2008.

Ultimately, Katie decided that conservatory life was not for her, and returned to California to finish her college education at Stanford University, where again, chamber music was at the top of her list of classes. Her quartet at Stanford, coached by Bonnie Hampton, spent a summer in Switzerland on scholarship at L'Institut des Hautes Etudes Musicales, where she participated in a master class given by the celebrated violinist, Zino Francescatti.

Katie's professional career began when she joined the San Jose Symphony in her senior year at Stanford, winning the Assistant Concertmaster position the following year. She says, "When it came time to earn a living, I was already doing it, playing in the orchestra, and teaching violin."