Steeped in community and church music, I grew up in small town Milo, Maine, where I recall earnestly trying to play my Great-Aunt-Lydia’s piano as a very young girl, until my family got me my own ($1 at a Lion’s Club auction – no other bids!). I took piano lessons from first grade onward, taught myself to play the guitar my mother got me with S&H Green Stamps, and sang at every opportunity.
Since then my musical adventures have included:
- studying at Oberlin College
- busking in the Paris subway and elsewhere
- recording film music
- Boston’s Lithuanian Ethnographic Ensemble Sodauto
- joining the People’s Music Network
- performing (Caffè Lena; Peoples Voice Café, New England Folk Festival, and more)
- being a folk/world music DJ (WOBC-FM and WMPG-FM)
- leading musical activities in nursing homes
- serving as a church musician
- recording two CDs
- marrying David Wallace-Lawrence, a Brit with a stupendous bass voice who leads interfaith chant
With voice, Marxophone and violin-guitar (play-by-number American fretless zithers sold door to door in the early 1900s), harpeleik, accordion, Lithuanian kanklės (from the land of my mother’s people), and more, I do a blend of originals, traditional music, and off-the-beaten-path covers.
(A more in-depth version of this bio is available here.)
About my new CD Joyful Confluence, released in August 2016:
- “It was worth waiting for!! I have played it through twice, & shall probably wear it out. I love it all! No one sings like you do, & it moves me deeply.” – Susan Hirschman
- “I want to tell you that I believe musically, and in other ways, Katherine, you are are a Cultural Treasure. I added the caps to indicate how very special you are… Congratulations on your new CD!” – Susan Gilbert Lord
- “I absolutely love your new cd and hope that you are aggressively promoting it at your gigs !!!” – Tom Ghent