Artist Bios: Katie Down

KATIE DOWN, composer, sound artist, and multi-instrumentalist has created and performed numerous sound scores for theatre and dance companies and international festivals as well as galleries, clubs, pubs, streets, alleyways, and beaches throughout the U.S. and Eastern and Western Europe. She is a collaborator at heart and works regularly with theatre and film directors, choreographers, writers, painters, dancers, and of course other musicians. Her sound walks entail intensive listening, recording, and organizing found sounds which later become material for audio collages, installations and compositions.

A classically trained flutist, she is also frequently seen/heard playing many different instruments including ukulele with the ukulele trio, The Ukuladies, steel cello, glass harmonica, Middle Eastern percussion, and a variety of unusual and homemade instruments and found objects. She is resident composer and designer for Ripe Time, Tap Fusion, and Pilgrim Theatre Performance Research Collaborative. Katie’s music and sound designs have been heard in theatres such as P.S. 122, SoHo Rep, The Culture Project, LaMaMa, The Duke at 42^nd, HERE, Dance Theatre Workshop, Ohio Theatre, Danspace at St. Marks’, WAX, Clark Studio Theatre, The Jose Qunitero Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts and many others. Music and sound for theatre include: Innocents, The Secret of Steep Ravines, The Holy Mother of Hadley, NY, The Trojan Women (RipeTime), The Loneliness of Noam Chomsky (Butane Group), Ondine (Deep Water Prod.), A Girl Joan (Erica Berg – The Culture Project), Henry VI (Judith Shakespeare Co.), Caucasian Chalk Circle (NYU), Tibetan Book of the Dead, Letters From Sarajevo (Pilgrim Theatre), Tap Fusion’s Seven Blessings (Duke at 42^nd) Gauntlet (Brendan McCall) and many others.

Katie performs with New York based free jazz improvisers as well as arranges and performs Sephardic songs from the Balkans with her ensemble Adelantre. She also sings Bulgarian songs with Yasna Voices. Residencies include Music/Omi Arts Colony, chashama’s AREA studio residency, Composer Librettist Studio at New Dramatists. Katie has toured with chashama’s international program conducting theatre and voice workshops for festivals including the Ohrid Summer Festival in Macedonia, Trn Festival in Slovenia, and Hvar UpBeat Festival in Croatia. She is an active member on the steering committee of THAW (Theatres Against War) where she works to implement the political cabaret, THAW Follies, into NY public high schools.