Often compared to songstress queens Joni Mitchell and Rickie Lee Jones, Katharina has gained the reputation as a highly accomplished and inspirational singer/songwriter & composer. Her main instruments for performance, composing and recording are vocals, piano, and ukulele.
A human concoction between sophisticated jazz diva, quirky Pippi Longstocking and wittily wordy intellectual, she never fails to move, amuse, shock and charm her audiences wherever she performs.
Her speciality is the creation of infectious, poppy and accessible textures, grooves and harmonies created on a looper and performed in real time, often involving the audience in layer participation until the audiences' imitation replaces the looper altogether.
Originally German, she mostly sings and writes in English and with her unsuspecting “outsider’s” approach to language she takes it apart and, with sharp precision, puts it back together into a tapestry of cultural observations, domestic dilemmas, ordinary miracles and environmental rap with unusual & intriguing twist. Her appreciation and awareness for language began at a very early age when she would do voiceovers for radio and film alongside her actress mother and soon learned the fine art of clear speech and accurate timing.
She has been performing extensively both on her own and alongside a variety of internationally renowned musicians (Anders Olinder (Tony Kofi, Amy Winehouse) Arista Hawkes (Guillemots), Tommy Scott, Jeff Spencer and Gemma Hayes) in art centres, hotels, clubs and at festivals and intimate concert stages in Germany, Sweden, Ireland and England.
Venues in Britain include clubs like the Guildhall/Gloucester, The Prom, The River, Tantric Jazz/Bristol, the Komedia, the Sanctuary/Brighton, The Yardbird/B’ham, The Kashmir Club/London, The Jazz & Blues Cafe and the Cheltenham Jazz/Literature Festival, that has been featuring her three times.
Autumn 1997 saw her moving to England where she soon integrated with the local music scene. She joined a local jazz trio and performed and recorded with them for nearly two years. In 1999 she finished recording her Debut Album "Somebody" with them. Since its launch, and despite having used very limited resources, it gained much recognition in the music industry and became one of the first albums to be promoted by peoplesound, one of Britain’s then largest music web sites,. The first track "Angharad" is featured on the french Jazz compilation Album “A Rey Jazz”.
In 1998 she worked with Terry Oldfield on his album “All the Rivers Gold” and appears alongside him in the documentary “Celtic Fury”. In 2001 she was invited to co-write and sing on the break beat single”Truth”/Dubplatter.
In 2002 she co-produces her second, more gregarious Album,” Love for Life" with a line up of some of Gloucestershire’s hottest music property, Andy Nowak, Jeff Spencer, Matthew Jones and Steve Browning. The Album garnered enthusiastic reviews from local and national press such as the BBC and Musicians Union.
Her track "Swimming" is featured on the compilation album “The best music you’ve never heard – Volume 2" as an International tribute to Independent artists produced by mosquito media music company. Despite offers by German jazz label YVP she decided to self release the Album and in April 2004 officially launched her website.
Various tours in Bavaria at premier venues such as Unterfahrt, Pasinger Fabrik, Schloss Seefeld, ARs Musica, Eine Welt Haus, Monofaktur & Kulturkeller earned her new contacts, enthusiastic fans and press reviews. At some of those concerts she invited the girl band "The Lucky Stripes" to back her in exchange for coaching them in vocal & stage performance. One of the tour highlights was the improvisational collaboration at the Überlinger Waterfestival with Ingvo Clauder, renowned pianist and saxophonist.
In September 2006 she finished studio recordings for her third album “Being Human”, backed by Tommy Scott, Paul K. Scott and Shane Young, who have since then formed formidable instrumental trio “Future Positive”. In 2009 she graduated with a BA Hon degree in Music at Dartington College of Arts/ Orff Institute in Austria.
Since 2010 she has been leading over a hundred regular workshops in Ukulele, Improvisation and Songwriting at the European Patent Office, Munich Music Academy, Art Centres and Music Centers as well as giving private tuition in Germany and the UK and has been a visiting artist at the access music akademy in Bristol. When in Munich, she leads a changing Ukulele Ensemble "Kat and the anonymous Ukoholics" consisting of some of her braver and advanced students, performing at Live venues and creating fun videos together.
Her workshops and individual lessons are tailored to age, ability and needs of the participants and venues/organisers, and are held in German or/and English.
She has self published a Ukulele book containing playing exercises, music theory in relation to ukulele playing and over 30 instrumental pieces for one, two or more ukuleles including backing tracks, very popular among her students (come visit my video and goodies page for more info)
In 2016 London based A Capella genius James Rose produced and arranged her A Capella piece "Patterns", which she originally developed and composed on the Looper. It is available on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HlSFQTTcF4 and is part of her upcoming 4th Album.
In 2019 she won second prize in the Lanikai Artist of the year, and the same year her instrumental "Bye Bye Dubai" ws put on the Ukulele Underground playlist.
In 2020 she was invited by Gloucestershire based band "The powdered Earth" to contribute backing vocals to their collaborative "That was the year".
A fourth album "Time to let go" as well as a micro ukulele instrumental album and gigs (see "Performance") are in the works and more news and videos will follow soon.
(Apart from her passion for Music she is also a published poet/writer, seamstress and loves making/teaching crafts from recycled materials. Her first e-co-authored book "Upcycling" has been published by one of Germanys top publishing houses Droemer-Knaur 2015. (visit "links" page)
The content of all services provided is drawn from her rich experience as a practising professional musician, her music degree, master classes & workshops she attends, a year long course in Performing Arts, a Waldorf Teachers Training & over ten years of teaching adult and children in groups & individually.
All her products are available on the goodies page on this website. Feel free to browse and look for the perfect present to yourself or your loved ones.