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Catherine Murphy Urner was born in Mitchell, Indiana, the third of seven children of Southern Illinois Normal College principal Edward Everett Urner (later a Methodist minister) and writer Jessie Robertson Urner.
Urner worked as a professor and director of vocal music at Mills College in Oakland, California from 1921 to 1924. After leaving Mills College, she devoted her time to performing, composing and touring in the U.S. and Europe with the assistance of Charles Koechlin. She also collected Native American tribal melodies which she incorporated into her compositions. Her first string quartet premiered in 1925 at Salle Pleyel in Paris, by the Krettly Quartet with 17-year-old cellist, Pierre Fournier. The program also included vocal renditions of compositions by Koechlin, Debussy, Brahms, Shubert and songs she had composed. She arranged for Koechlin to teach a course at the University of California in 1928, and afterward lived with Koechlin in Paris until 1933, collaborating on a number of works. Their musical collaboration was also one of intimacy and deep admiration. In 1937, she returned to California and married organist and composer Charles Rollins Shatto (1908–1983).