Katsaris was born in Marseilles, France. Katsaris first began to play the piano when he was four, in Cameroon where he grew up. His first teacher was Marie-Gabrielle Louwerse.
He studied piano at the Paris Conservatoire with Aline van Barentzen and Monique de la Bruchollerie, who had been a pupil of Emil von Sauer – one of Franz Liszt's favourite pupils. In 1969, Katsaris won the piano First Prize. As well as piano, Katsaris also studied chamber music with René Leroy and Jean Hubeau, and he won First Prize for this in 1970.
Katsaris gave his first public concert in Paris, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 8 May 1966. He performed the Hungarian Fantasy by Liszt, with the Orchestre Symphonique d'Ile-de-France conducted by René-Pierre Chouteau. Since then he has carried on to perform with many orchestras and conductorsfréquentes.
Katsaris was the first musician in history to record the complete Liszt transcriptions of Beethoven's nine symphonies – reissued by Warner Classics in 2006 – the transcriptions are among the greatest, and most technically demanding in the pianistic repertoire. He has also recorded the music of Mozart, Chopin, Grieg, and other composers, including the rare piano version of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with Brigitte Fassbaender and Thomas Moser.
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