Peter Katina (1975) is a Slovak accordionist focused mainly on contemporary music. He started playing accordion at the age of six. Already during his studies at the primary music school he won many prizes in accordion competitions. He studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. The Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic awarded him for excellent results in studies which he graduated with the V.C. praise certificate for excellent school performance.
He won several prizes at international competitions, he is a winner of Coupe Mondiale C.I.A. competition and a laureate of competitions in Denmark, France and Switzerland. After the graduation at the Academy in Bratislava Peter Katina studied at the Carl Nielsen Music Academy in Odense, Denmark, where he finished his studies specializing on contemporary music performance with brilliant study results under prof.Owen Murray. Later he continued in postgraduate studies at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava.
Already during his studies Peter Katina inclined to contemporary music performance and was the initiator of several accordion compositions both in Slovakia and abroad. He cooperated with composers as Per Nørgård, Toshio Hosokawa, Lars Graugaard, Magnar Åm, Shai Cohen, in Slovakia with Jozef Podprocký, Evgeny Irshai, Peter Machajdík and many others. He also gave the first performance of concertos for accordion and orchestra by Igor Dibák, Joseph Kolkovich and Evgeny Irshai. Peter Katina gave concerts in Denmark, Great Britain, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Serbia and Czech Republic.
He appeared at festivals Poznań Music Spring, Arcus Temporum in Pannonhalma, Re:New in Copenhagen, Ny Musik i Birkerød, at festivals Melos-Étos, Konvergencie, ISCM New Music Days, Sound City Days, Hevhetia Summer Music Festival, Ars Nova and Konfrontácie. He cooperates with the theatre DivadloViola in Prešov, where he regularly gives premiere concerts of solo and chamber music. Besides the solo projects he performs in a duo with his wife, pianist Janette Katinová Šingerová. His discography includes the albums Solo and Secrets, the recording Flashing with Scandinavian music, Preludes and Fugues Op.87 by Dmitri Shostakovich, accordion works by Jozef Podprocký and Evgeny Irshai and the album A Leap Into the Dark with new Israeli music.
Peter Katina led an Accordion Masterclass at the Royal Academy of Music in London and gave a lecture at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest.
Besides his concert activities he also works as a teacher at Conservatory of Jozef Adamovič in Košice and as a lecturer of dramaturgy at the Košice State Philharmonic. At the same time he is also active as a music publicist, he wrote a significant number of articles and reviews published in different music magazines. He worked as an external collaborator of the Slovak Radio, where he presented his own programs on classical music and jazz. Peter Katina also presented a public serie of popularizing lectures on music called MusicZoom:Unconventional talkshow about music. He is the autor of the book Hudba inak (Music in a Different Way).