Katsuyama also has taught at the University of Dayton, as well as high schools and elementary schools in Dayton, Kettering and Centerville, said Gwen Brubaker, club membership treasurer.
“She’s an amazing person. She’s a fine cellist, which everybody in the (local) musical community would know,” Brubaker said. “She’s played with the Dayton Philharmonic for years and years. And she’s an excellent teacher.
“Any time anybody needed a cellist … just call Jane and if she couldn’t do it, she’d find somebody who could,” she added.
Brubaker said she will present the honor to Katsuyama during the club’s 3 p.m. Sunday September Musicale and Awards Presentations at Christ United Methodist Church in Kettering.
Katsuyama “isn’t one to seek out recognition, but she has spent her life working hard for the Dayton community for nearly 50 years,” her daughter, Jana, said in an email.
Her mother was a cellist with the DPO for more than 40 years starting in the 1970s, Jana Katsuyama said. She created educational storytelling programs such as “The Three Little Pigs,” “Three Bears” and “Land of XYZ” that the orchestra’s string quartet performed for thousands of children at schools in the region, her daughter said.
Jane Katsuyama also taught at Dayton’s Stivers School for the Arts and Colonel White High School, the Miami Valley School in Washington Twp., and Indian Riffle Elementary School in Kettering, according to the club.
“She’s always promoting the teaching of the arts in school,” Brubaker said. “Music, theater ... those things absolutely have to be taught in school. She’s a strong supporter of that.”
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