Kristin Mortenson is the Coordinator of Publicity and Outreach for the Music Department at K-State, where she has taught music theory in the core curriculum for music majors, and violin and viola during Professor Cooper’s sabbatical leave. She maintains a private violin and viola studio in Manhattan, and has been on the string faculty of Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp in Michigan since 1986. Mortenson currently serves as Articles Editor of the American String Teacher, the professional quarterly journal of the American String Teachers Association. She also is the Assistant Editor of the International Trumpet Guild Journal.

Mortenson attended the University of Texas at Austin as a violin student of Leonard Posner, and received Bachelor of Music and Master of Music degrees in violin from Louisiana State University, where she studied with Sally O’Reilly. She is Associate Concertmaster of the Topeka Symphony and was previously a first violinist in the Austin, Baton Rouge, Wichita, and Des Moines Symphonies. She has performed as soloist with the Blue Lake Festival Orchestra and the Flint Hills Chamber Orchestra, and served as Concertmaster of the Blue Lake Festival Orchestra for nearly twenty years.

Kristin is a violinist in the Tallgrass Trio (with bassoonist Susan Maxwell and clarinetist Abby Richmond) and the Pernambuco String Quartet, which is on the 2006-2010 Kansas Touring Program Roster through the Kansas Arts Commission. She has performed in concert with popular entertainers Ray Charles, Dionne Warwick, Bob Hope, Marvin Hamlisch, Red Skelton, Doc Severinsen, Rich Little, and Shirley Jones. She is a Life Member of Sigma Alpha Iota, is listed in Who’s Who in America, and was inducted into the Golden Key National Honor Society at the University of Texas. Kristin rings handbells with the Spirit Ringers at First United Methodist Church, and enjoys running in her free time. She completed the 2003 Chicago Marathon as well as a number of shorter distance races.