Kathryn Blake is a vibrant composer, violist, and educator based in Frederick, Maryland. Her budding career began in her collegiate years at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and has since continued to grow and expand her expertise. Many of her recent works have focused on themes of health, both physical and mental. Kathryn’s works have been featured in the Fresh Inc. Festival (2019), the District New Music Coalition Fall Conferences (2020, 2021, & 2022), T1International’s “Change Through Creativity” Project as part of National Diabetes Awareness Month (2020), the New Music Gathering (2021), and in the Hong Kong Cellist Society’s Blog, “Why You Should Learn This Piece” by Brian Patrick Bromberg (2022). Her percussion solo, Just Ordinary (2019), also placed third in Media Press Music’s 2021 Solo Percussion Composition Contest and is now published through them.
In addition to the notable features, Kathryn’s works have been performed by a variety of ensembles and soloists, including the Bergamot String Quartet, Balance Campaign, the Strata Trio, the Achelois Collective, the Urbana High School orchestra, percussionist Jonathan Sotelo, cellist Christian Hartman, clarinetist Alexander Dudkin, percussionist Joseph Van Hassel, and cellist Brian Patrick Bromberg. Of these performers, she had been commissioned by Christian Hartman, Alexander Dudkin, the Urbana High School orchestra, and the Achelois Collective for their works.
Beyond her works for the concert hall, Kathryn also highly enjoys interdisciplinary work and has collaborated with visual artists and dancers. She has composed music for animator Will Kraft’s When It’s Over, Leave and Let's Go Together!, and filmmaker Kelvin Thompson’s New Wave Cinderella. Kathryn also has worked extensively with members of the dance department of UMBC, having collaborated with choreographers Theresa Whittemore, Kayla Massey, and Ann Sofie Clemmensen. She both composed and performed the music in her collaboration with Clemmensen, In To and Out Of: Part Two, which premiered at The Kennedy Center’s The REACH in 2019, and was performed again at the Baltimore Dance Project in 2020.
As a violist, Kathryn actively performed with the UMBC Symphony from 2017 to 2021 under the directions of Dr. E. Michael Richards and Jason Love, where she was the principal violist for several semesters. She also is an avid chamber performer and premiered Donte Speaks Jr.’s String Quartet and Eliza Triolo’s Suddenly Last Spring. She currently is working with cellist Jeremy Keaton in a viola-cello duo.
In addition to her composing and performing, Kathryn is a passionate music educator, maintaining a private studio of school-age violinists and violists. In her teaching, she aims to make classical music accessible and enjoyable for her students and to help them find the avenues that bring them the most joy, all while emphasizing a healthy balance between life and music. Kathryn has also worked with Frederick County Public Schools’ Academy of the Fine Arts to mentor high school musicians in composition in a one-on-one setting, and in a group exploratory class. In her work with the academy, she helped students think outside the box and explore different ideas and approaches to classical composition.
Outside of her musical life, Kathryn is a vocal disability advocate, with a focus on diabetes advocacy and the Insulin for All movement, which fights for affordable and accessible insulin across the world. She enjoys sharing her experience as a type 1 diabetic to spread awareness of the condition and what it is like to live with it. Kathryn is also passionate about social justice and wants to do her part to make the world a better place for all those who live in it.
Kathryn holds her B.A. in Music Composition from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where she studied beneath composers Dr. Linda Dusman and Dr. Bradley Green, and violist Lisa Steltenpohl. Kathryn currently studies privately with violist Dr. Kimia Hesabi.