Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times described Katherine Young’s music, as a “raw, wailing, coloristic” with an “organic sweep.” As a composer and as a bassoonist, Katherine creates acoustic and electro-acoustic music that uses curious timbres, expressive noises, and kinetic structures to explore suspended time, genre fiction, the communication of ensemble energies, and the tension between the familiar and the strange.
Recent projects include a new work for TimeTable percussion with Issue Project Room’s Emerging Artists Commission, a commission for choreographer Daria Fain’s TARGET:furnace, and a commission for the String Orchestra of Brooklyn. Forthcoming works include a string quartet, music for the Prosodic Body’s Phoneme Choir, and a piece for Talea Ensemble as part of the Harvard Summer Composition Institute.
Katherine has documented her work on numerous recordings, including a 2009 solo bassoon release, which garnered praise in The Wire (“Bassoon colossus”) and Downbeat (“seriously bold leaps for the bassoon”). Katherine’s solo project employs pedals and amplification, and she leads the doomy improv quartet Pretty Monsters featuring bassoon, violin, electric guitar, and drums, which has its debut record coming out in summer 2012 on Public Eyesore.
As an improviser, Katherine has toured with Anthony Braxton, recorded with Hans Joachim Irmler from Faust and F.M. Einheit from Einsturzende Neubauten, shared bills with Zeena Parkins, and the stage John Zorn. Active collaborations also include: chamber music collective Till by Turning, the duo Architeuthis Walks on Land with violist Amy Cimini, and chamber-pop quartet the Fancy. Katherine studied at Oberlin College & Conservatory, Wesleyan University, and is currently a DM candidate at Northwestern University.
katherineyoung.bandcamp.com
www.carrierrecords.com
katherineyoung.blogspot.com