News  

UM RC faculty recital on March 25, 2022

Katri is given the Outstanding Contribution to Undergraduate Education Award

Katrimusic on youtube
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Katrimusic on instagram
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Mestiza Music, the documentary airing nationally on your PBS stations June 2016-January 2017!

Katrimusic on twitter

E3Q video "Lonesome Luke" released on facebook Aug.29.2013
 
a new video from Drew DeFour, featuring Kin Curran "Don't Be Afraid to Sing the Songs You Love"

Katri on facebook

May Erlewine's album "Golden" won the "Jammie" of the year, and the "best Americana album of the year" in Grand Rapids, MI. GO May! And yes, Golden is epic.   

2022
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I am overjoyed to have something to write here! It has been a long time without cello performance activities - since March 2020 as a matter of fact. The Muse Ensemble (as well as my bum shoulder) was making a come back, and when the restrictions hit Michigan we had just finished a residency/concert program at UM with Maria Sampen. It was a beautiful time and I can't wait to play together again. 

Finally, after two full pandemic years, I am so very glad to be performing with my Residential College colleagues Jennifer Goltz-Taylor and Naki Sung Kripfgans, as well as the wonderful John Boonenberg on Friday March 25th 2022 . We are presenting a recital Under Your Wings I Can Find Shelter from Ordinary Things. The pandemic and quarantine profoundly altered my sense of time, and while restricting many things, allowed for others. I was able to research composers, and discovered a wonderful composer whose music I had not heard before - Mel Bonis. She lived a middle-class life in the late 19th century Paris and experienced many things that one might associate with a woman of her class: an incredibly talented musician, she was allowed to study with the likes of Cesar Franck, but certainly not to have music as profession. Mélanie, or Madame Domange by her married name had to hide her femininity and publish music under "Mel" Bonis - but her composition was such that she WAS published (by Leduc!) and became the first female secretary of the Société des compositeurs de musique. Her Sonata for Cello and Piano was written in 1904 in a beautiful, mature romantic style with "impressionistic" overtones. Like her classmate Claude Debussy (who disliked the term "impressionism"), Mel blurs the lines of tonality with her use of the modes, octatonic, whole tone and chromatic scales and creates incredible sonic landscapes.  Jennifer, John and I are also performing "Four Songs" by André Previn, a setting of Toni Morrison's stunning poems, with the hope that "Mercy" and "Shelter" will help our audience find solace, much as we have, in the beauty of this music.       

AVAILABLE ONLINE: I have a  youtube channel (thanks to pianist Tuomas Juutilainen for impromptu video shoot at the end of; Brad Phillips for asking me to play on a track with Jeff Daniels, Brian Vander Ark, May Erlewine, the Brad Phillips Roots Music Strings etc).   Mestiza Music, our PBS documentary, is finished playing on PBS stations nationwide. It is a 60-minute telling of our journey in cultural collaboration and merging of two musical ensembles, Andean pan pipe trio and western classical string quartet, through music of composer Gabriela Lena Frank.  The film was broadcast nationally starting in June 2016. WFYI Indianapolis has created a webpage for the documentary and you can still see the documentary on youtube through that page. 

The time in quarantine was good for self-reflection, and I was happy to notice that I really love my teaching job. I am also proud of the volunteer work that I do, and realized that I should probably consider it a part of my career, because in this day and age a "career" can be a lot of different things and doesn't necessarily have to take a linear path. And so, through my kids I have become involved in dance education (not as a teacher but an administrator!) - who knew that I could be a board president  in a dance company! So many things to consider when putting on a pandemic Nutcracker... I am also involved in the Professor Pentti Kaitera Charitable Fund at the Oulu University - it carries my grandfather's name and promotes health and well-being in Northern Finland.