KatherineYoung

About this artist

Composer and bassoonist Katherine Young creates acoustic and electro-acoustic music that uses curious timbres, expressive noises, and kinetic structures to explore the dramatic materiality of sound, constantly shifting ensemble energies, and the tension between the familiar and the strange.

Recent projects include "slam creak bzzz" for amplified string quartet and electronics, a premiere by Talea Ensemble of "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" for mixed ensemble and 8-channel playback, and a commission from the String Orchestra of Brooklyn. Katherine also wrote the music for choreographer Daria Fain’s TARGET: Furnace for solo dancer and three musicians. The piece had a week-long run at the Chocolate Factory, and The New York Times described the work as “full of absorbing elements...a lushly spare aural landscape...marvelously charged.”

Katherine has documented her work on numerous recordings, including the 2012 debut of her quartet Pretty Monsters (Public Eyesore), which, according to Neil Tesser "threatens to upend any comfortable divisions between music and noise." Her 2009 solo bassoon release, Further Secret Origins garnered praise in The Wire (“Bassoon colossus”) and Downbeat (“seriously bold leaps for the bassoon”).

As an improviser, Katherine has toured with Anthony Braxton, recorded with Hans Joachim Irmler from Faust and F.M. Einheit from Einsturzende Neubauten. Over the years she has shared bills with John Zorn and Zeena Parkins and performed with musicians such as Peter Evans, Guillermo Gregorio, Mary Halvorson, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Jeff Parker, Jessica Pavone, Dan Peck, Sam Pluta, Tomeka Reid, and Weasel Walter. Katherine’s active projects also include the duo Architeuthis Walks on Land with violist Amy Cimini and the chamber music collective Till by Turning, who has a recording forthcoming on Klangbad in 2013.