A very formal classical bio. Look below for the less serious one...
Finnish-born musician Katri Ervamaa, DMA, is a versatile cellist, who especially enjoys performing chamber music, new music and creative improvisation. She has performed and given master classes throughout North America, Europe and Taiwan. Her festival appearances include the Orlando, Kuhmo, Bowdoin, Lyckå and Norrtäjle Chamber Music Festivals (with the Finnish Owla String Quartet) as well as the Denison University Tutti! New Music Festival, Poison City Music Festival, Walla Walla Chamber Music Festival and Finnfest, among others. She has also performed at Ann Arbor’s Edgefest with Lars Hollmer’s Global Home Project, Guy Kluscevic, Mark Kirschenmann, E3Q, Andrew Bishop and Ed Sarath's Timescape. She studied cello with Erling Blöndal Bengtsson at the University of Michigan, earning a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree, Marc Johnson at the Northern Illinois University, Kazimierz Mikhalik in Poland and Lauri Laitinen at the Oulu Conservatory in Finland. She also studied chamber music with Andrew Jennings and the members of the Vermeer, Alban Berg, Amadeus and Borodin String Quartets, and frequently at the Britten-Pears School in England.
Katri is a founding member and past president of Brave New Works new music ensemble. She is also a member of the newly founded Järnefelt Piano Trio, the Muse String Trio and E3Q, an improvisation-based genre-defying trio of trumpet, cello and percussion. She appears on Envoy Recordings, Block M Records, and AMP Records labels and, most recently, on PBS stations through the US in the music documentary "Mestiza Music" produced by WFYI-Indianapolis. A champion of newly composed art music, Katri has premiered numerous chamber music and solo cello works and worked with such composers as William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, Michael Daugherty, Marilyn Shrude, Gabriela Lena Frank, Robert Morris, Chen Yi and Forrest Pierce.
In addition to her lively performance career, Katri is on faculty at the University of Michigan’s Residential College, where she is the head of the music program and teaches chamber music. She has also been on the cello faculty at the Eastern Michigan and Bowling Green State Universities. Most recently, she has given master classes and participated in residencies at Cornell and Oklahoma State Universities, University of Puget Sound and the Oulu Conservatory in Finland. Katri is a mother of three and lives in Ann Arbor, MI with her family. You can find Katri online at www.katrimusic.com, on facebook , youtube and twitter @katrimusic.
Katri is a founding member and past president of Brave New Works new music ensemble. She is also a member of the newly founded Järnefelt Piano Trio, the Muse String Trio and E3Q, an improvisation-based genre-defying trio of trumpet, cello and percussion. She appears on Envoy Recordings, Block M Records, and AMP Records labels and, most recently, on PBS stations through the US in the music documentary "Mestiza Music" produced by WFYI-Indianapolis. A champion of newly composed art music, Katri has premiered numerous chamber music and solo cello works and worked with such composers as William Bolcom, Bright Sheng, Michael Daugherty, Marilyn Shrude, Gabriela Lena Frank, Robert Morris, Chen Yi and Forrest Pierce.
In addition to her lively performance career, Katri is on faculty at the University of Michigan’s Residential College, where she is the head of the music program and teaches chamber music. She has also been on the cello faculty at the Eastern Michigan and Bowling Green State Universities. Most recently, she has given master classes and participated in residencies at Cornell and Oklahoma State Universities, University of Puget Sound and the Oulu Conservatory in Finland. Katri is a mother of three and lives in Ann Arbor, MI with her family. You can find Katri online at www.katrimusic.com, on facebook , youtube and twitter @katrimusic.
OK so here's what it should say
Katri loves playing many different kinds of music, from the most complex newly composed classical music to Mozart via
Shostakovich, jazz, improvisation and even country (if you count the
Hank Williams Project as country). She grew up in Oulu, Finland, playing in the Owla
String Quartet (in high school and after, for ten years) and studying string quartets as much as she possibly could. After studying in DeKalb, IL for five
years with the Vermeer Quartet, she moved to Ann Arbor, MI where she got a Doctor of Musical Arts
degree in cello. While at Michigan, many wonderful things happened: she
met her husband composer and trumpeter extraordinaire Mark
Kirschenmann, got into improv by way of the "Creative Arts Ensemble" and
became a founding member of the new music ensemble Brave New Works.
Maybe that's why she never left: still here, after all these
years, teaching at the University of Michigan's Residential College and being a mom to three
amazing, cute and very loud kids.
