Katie Down, composer, sound artist, and multi-instrumentalist (flute, ukulele,
voice, percussion, bass, guitar, homemade instruments) has created and performed
numerous sound scores for theatre and dance companies and international festivals
throughout the U.S. and Eastern and Western Europe working collaboratively with
theatre and film directors, choreographers, writers, painters, dancers, and of
course other musicians.
She has worked as resident composer and designer for Ripe Time, Tap Fusion, and
Pilgrim Theatre Performance Research Collaborative as well as other theatres,
and her designs have been heard in theatres such as Classic Stage Company, P.S.
122, SoHo Rep, The Culture Project, LaMaMa, Dance New Amsterdam, The Duke at 42nd,
HERE, Dance Theatre Workshop, Ohio Theatre, Danspace at St. Marks’, WAX,
Clark Studio Theatre at Lincoln Center, The Jose Qunitero Theatre, Boston Center
for the Arts, and many others.
Music direction, sound design and original scores for: Machinal (SUNY Brockport);
Redevelopment (Havel Festival, NYC); Death in Vacant Lot (South Wing Theatre Company)
The Rivals (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival); Trouble in Paradise (Hourglass
Productions); Faust (Target Margin Theatre), Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights (University
of Rochester International Theatre Program), 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 42nd) and many others.
Katie performs in many different genres including jazz and free improvisation,
Sephardic songs from the Balkans with her group Adelantre, and swing music from
the 20s and 30s with ukulele trio The Ukuladies. She has performed numerous times
with various groups at Tonic, Barbes, Cornelia Street Café, BAM Café,
The New Vanguard Series at Deep Listening Space, The Knitting Factory, Bowery
Poetry Club, CBGB’s , ABC NoRio, Downtown Music Gallery, etc.
She has produced and curated concerts and festivals of new music including the Boston
Musicians Festival for Bosnian Relief, SKIF 2 in 1998, Galumphing Festivals at
chashama in 2003, the collaborative works in progress series, Big Bang, at the
Cornelia Street Café, and Uke Nights! at Night and Day Restaurant still
going strong.
Internationally she has performed at the Ohrid Summer Festival in Macedonia, Trn
Festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and the Malta Festival in Poznan, Poland. She
has toured twice with chashama’s international program where she co-conducted
voice and movement workshops with young people from Media Artes in Macedonia,
the UpBeat Hvar Music Festival in Croaita and Trn Fest in Slovenia.
Residencies include Watermill Arts Center, Music/Omi, chashama’s AREA grant,
The Composer Librettist Studio at New Dramatists.