Milton Katims, 96; Former Conductor of Seattle Symphony

Milton Katims, the music conductor who transformed the Seattle Symphony Orchestra from a part-time symphony with a mix of amateur and professional musicians into a respected regional orchestra, died Monday. He was 96.

Katims, who was also an accomplished violist, died at Richmond Beach Rehabilitation Center in Shoreline, a suburb of Seattle, his daughter Pamela Katims Steele said. The cause was heart failure.

During Katims’ 22 years as music director of the Seattle Symphony, starting in 1954, symphony subscriptions more than quadrupled. He also expanded the orchestra’s repertory and launched several community outreach projects, including a family concerts program and the “Stars of the Future” series for young musicians. As a teenager, cellist Yo-Yo Ma was once featured in the series.

“Milton transformed a community orchestra into a serious professional orchestra,” Gerard Schwarz, music director of the Seattle Symphony, said Thursday. “He excited the city about classical music. He also began a wonderful educational program.”

Several years after Katims arrived in Seattle, he helped to establish the city’s Opera House, which was the home for the Seattle Symphony for a number of years. He was involved in the project from the fundraising stage and conducted the opening night concert in April 1962 with pianist Van Cliburn as the soloist.

“Milton was the energizer behind the Opera House,” said Peter Donnelly, a longtime friend of Katims and the former producing director of the Seattle Repertory Theatre.

Katims also launched a chamber music concert series that attracted top soloists, including violinist Isaac Stern. He and his wife, Virginia, a cellist, often performed with the group.

“Milton kept up his viola playing, wonderfully, until he was close to 90,” said Marjorie Kransberg-Talvi, a violinist who performed with Katims informally in recent years. “He came from a marvelous tradition of music making and was very generous about passing on all that he learned.”

Born into a musical family in Brooklyn, N.Y., Katims played violin from a young age and later switched to the viola. He majored in psychology at Columbia University while studying music and conducting.

Several years after he graduated from Columbia, he became the assistant conductor for the NBC Symphony Orchestra in New York City in 1947 under Arturo Toscanini, the orchestra’s famed principal conductor. Katims also taught at the Juilliard School for several years.

After leaving the Seattle Symphony Orchestra in 1976, he became artistic director of the School of Music at the University of Houston in Texas, where he remained for eight years. He returned to Seattle in the early 1980s. In addition to his wife of 70 years and his daughter, Katims is survived by a son, a brother and two grandchildren.

Contributions in his name may be made to Katims Fund for Kids, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, P.O. Box 21906, Seattle, WA 98111.