Katie Down
Sound
Sound Art
Original Music
Visual Art
Katie Down is a performer, composer, sound artist/designer and multi-instrumentalist. Originally a classically-trained flutist, Katie's abiding interests are in the realms of sound art and Deep Listening as a way into musicking and artistic inquiry. Additional instruments include piano, ukulele, glass instruments, steel cello, various types of percussion including frame drums, doumbek, djembe, and other hand drums and voice. Katie's voicework, not only as an improviser but as a music psychotherapist, is largely inspired by trainings and workshops with Pauline Oliveros, Meredith Monk, Rhiannon, Kristin Linkletter and Sylvia Nakkach.
Katie's sound designs for theatre have garnered her award nominations from the Drama Desk and the Connecticut Critic's Circle award. She has received several travel grants, residencies, and commissions including the Mid-Atlantic fund, The Jerome Foundation, BAM, Watermill Artist Residencies, Chashama, Music Omi, and Meet the Composer. She is also a member of several performing groups including NewBorn Trio, a glass percussion ensemble that was recently commissioned by BAM to create a sound-score for the play "Sleep" based on a short story by Murakami; Sofie Salonika, a hybrid Sephardic music ensemble with an emphasis on new arrangements and improvisation; and The Ukuladies!, an all-female, bawdy ukulele band equipped with tap dancer and too many instruments and props to name.
Her work in the world is inspired by the ideas and practices found in deep listening, acoustic ecology, free improvisation, compassionate discourse of ideas and all the musical drones of the world. Katie is an instructor at SUNY New Paltz in the Music Therapy Department and hopes to encourage her students to see their work in the world as an agent for positive change by connecting to one another through unconditional positive regard and an abundance of curiosity.
Sofie Salonika