photo by Timo Andres
Kelli Kathman attends the Graduate Center of the City University of New York where she is a doctoral student of Tara Helen O’Connor. Kelli also holds a Bachelor’s Degree from the Eastman School of Music and a Master’s Degree from Yale University. She regularly performs with new music ensembles Signal and Alarm Will Sound and has collaborated with such collectives as the Reich Ensemble, the Martha Graham Dance Company and the Zankel Band. Ms. Kathman had her solo debut at the age of sixteen with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. Since then, she has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in concert halls both here and abroad, most recently the Hermitage Theater, Izumi Hall, Carnegie Hall’s Isaac Stern Auditorium and Zankel Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Miller Theater, Merkin Concert Hall, Kilbourn Hall and the Library of Congress. Ms. Kathman has recorded on such labels as Naxos, Nonesuch, Warp Records and New Amsterdam Records. Her passion for new music has brought her into close contact with composers such as Steve Reich, John Adams, Julia Wolf, David Lang, and Terry Riley, among many others.
Kelli is a founding member of the award-winning New York-based woodwind quintet, Sospiro Winds. Prize-winners at the 2007 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Sprague Hall Chamber Music Competition, and finalists at the 2008 Osaka International Chamber Music Competition, Sospiro Winds has been invited to perform on numerous concert series, including the Wintergreen Performing Arts Series, the Yale at Carnegie Concert Series, the Chamber Music Society at Yale Concert Series, and the Trinity Concerts at One Series. For more information, please visit www.sospirowinds.com.
How did you get started playing your instrument, and how did it turn into a career?
One day almost 20 years ago I picked up my friend’s flute and taught myself the Star Spangled Banner. The next year I announced in my school newspaper that I was going to be the principal flutist in the Philadelphia Orchestra when I grew up. Then one day, many years later, I woke up and found myself getting paid to play music. So I ran with it.
Talk about one of your most satisfying musical performance experiences.
I worked on a project of composer Ted Hearne called “Katrina Ballads”. At the beginning I didn’t know Ted so well, or anyone else on the project for that matter, and I remember having the absolute worst attitude when I showed up. All I could do was focus on the crazy rehearsal schedule, the long schlep from the subway, the cold rehearsal space, bad lighting… you name it, I complained about it.
So we started rehearsals and I was totally stuck in my obnoxious world of imaginary suffering when, on day two or three, I started listening to the music, started to really hear the words. The project was inspired by Hurricane Katrina and all of the text came from survivors, politicians, aid workers, and other well-known public figures during the storm and in the days following. So there I was, complaining in my head, when I hear baritone Anthony Turner sing, “My wife, I can’t find her body, she gone…” Had I really just been whining about fluorescent lighting?? All of a sudden I was super grateful to be sitting in a warehouse in Brooklyn, with electricity and running water and a room full of wonderful people.
Katrina Ballads was the first truly meaningful project I had been involved in. You could hear in the music that Ted had put his heart and soul into this work. And you could hear in the rehearsals and the performances that the whole band was totally into the project. My career, which was starting to feel like one big ego trip, was suddenly infused with meaning and conviction and I felt truly inspired! It wasn’t about impressing people but about reaching people.
I consider myself very lucky to be a part of this ongoing project. Since then I’ve been fortunate enough to have other hugely meaningful projects, namely David Little’s “Soldier Songs” and outreach work through Carnegie Hall’s Musical Connections. All of these are my most satisfying musical experiences.
What gets you interested in/inspired by/excited about playing a new piece of music?
I love seeing little dots on a page and then hearing what they sound like when everyone plays theirs at the right time. And then you can all go have a beer.
What is your listening “guilty pleasure?”
Ambient music. I used to wait in front of the radio for Hearts of Space to come on NPR when I was a kid.
What projects do you have coming up that we should know about?
I’m playing a show with the New York Miniaturist Ensemble on January 31. It’s a super clever group that is dedicated to playing works of 100 notes or less. I’ll be playing four pieces for solo flute, three of which are premiers by composers Anna Mikhailova, Ruben Naeff and Ed RosenBerg III.
Also, Signal Ensemble has a really awesome Spring, with works by Helmut Lachenman, Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Nico Muhly and Sir Harrison Birtwistle on the program. Those are all really exciting shows. You should definitely check them out if you can. Brad Lubman is a rockstar conductor and always makes the group sound like a million bucks.
Please answer: If I were not a musician, I would be a ________, because _________.
Probably a social scientist of some sort? Just because it’s the only other field I ever considered as a kid. But who knows at this point??
