Katz was born into a prosperous Jewish family[1] in Posen,[2] then part of Prussia, now Poznań, Poland.
In 1918, Katz completed eight weeks of basic training just before the Armistice was signed, ending World War I.
[1][3][note 1] Katz worked at night as a fireman on the roof of a factory and during the day, he gave concerts in London churches, until they were bombed[1] in the Blitz.
In 1940, the British government, fearing a "fifth column", rounded up all "enemy aliens", all German-speaking males over the age of 16 and some females, including many who had fled Nazism.
[1][5] On release from internment in 1941, Katz began working at Bunce Court School,[2] which had been evacuated to Wem in Shropshire from its original home in Otterden, Kent.
[2][4] Arriving via Canada with $3 and the clothes on their backs, his wife took a job as a night nurse, Katz copied music and his daughter painted vases.
[6] Katz also directed the New York Musician's Workshop, a group of singers and instrumentalists which performed early and contemporary music.
Student LaNoue Davenport wrote, "Being educated by [Katz] involved not only a verbal-intellectual process, but the body and spirit as well."
[1][5] His wife was a psychiatrist and they lived in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York and his daughter, Hanna, was married and went to Puerto Rico.
[6] Katz was called "the true father of the recorder movement in [the United States]"[6] and a "seminal figure".
[15] The American Recorder Society has an Erich Katz Memorial Fund, which holds a composition contest.