As a concertmaster, Mathaes has led numerous orchestras including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, and the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra. She has also appeared with the Minnesota Orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, and the Houston Grand Opera and Ballet Orchestras. In 2005 at the age of 25, Mathaes was appointed concertmaster of the Austin Symphony, becoming both the youngest and first female concertmaster of the orchestra in its over 100-year history.
As a soloist, Mathaes has been broadcast live on Performance Today and Chicago Public Radio, and has performed throughout Singapore on a solo and masterclass tour sponsored by the US Embassy. She has also performed as a soloist with the Austin, Victoria, Bismarck-Mandan, Round Rock, Northwest Iowa, Masterworks, and National Music Festival Orchestras. She has premiered works by many American composers including Pierre Jalbert and Paul Reale, and has released solo albums on the Naxos and Centaur labels to critical acclaim in Gramophone. She has served on the faculty of the Credo Music Festival, the International Festival-Institute at Round Top, the National Music Festival, and the Masterworks Festival, and her students have gone on to earn spots at top music schools in the United States. In 2022 Mathaes joined the faculty of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, where she teaches violin and chamber music.
Born in Chicago, Mathaes grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, where she was concertmaster of the Omaha Area Youth Orchestra and made her solo debut at age 16 playing the Saint-Saens Violin Concerto No. 3. She was also an award-winning pianist in her youth. Mathaes holds performance degrees from Rice University, where she graduated magna cum laude.
