biography
Praised for her “beautifully rich tone” (The Flute View) and for her “semi-cinematic songs that could beautifully soundtrack the imaginative pastoral settings of Studio Ghibli animations” (Flagpole Magazine), Dr. Kelly Catlin has established herself as an innovative flutist, composer, and teacher with an entrepreneurial mind.
COMPOSITION Dr. Catlin (ASCAP) released her critically-acclaimed debut album of original electroacoustic flute works, titled Backstory, in April 2021. She is dedicated to demystifying music technology for performers; as part of her research culminating in Backstory, she developed a curriculum for flute performance students and gives masterclasses on recording and music technology. Dr. Catlin was also the composer and Co-Producer for the original NYC Off-Off Broadway show, Magic the Play. In February 2018, Magic the Play sold out all performances during its run in the Studio Theatre at Theatre Row. While pursuing her doctorate she founded an indie orchestra, Millennium. This multimedia pop orchestra merged orchestral and pop genres, performing live original works written by Dr. Catlin with accompanying animation projections.
ORCHESTRAL FLUTE Dr. Catlin performs regularly as a freelance and orchestral musician in the metro-Atlanta area. She is currently Principal Flutist of the Lawrenceville Symphony Orchestra and the Atlanta Contemporary Music Collective. She has performed with the Brooklyn Metro Chamber Orchestra, Young Artists’ Symphony Orchestra of Los Angeles, American Youth Symphony, and the New York City Master Chorale Orchestra, among others. Dr. Catlin has played under the baton of renowned conductors including Leonard Slatkin, Perry So, Paul Nadler, and Alexander Treger.
RECOGNITION Recognized for her musical talents as a flutist and as a scholar, Kelly Catlin has been the recipient of multiple competitive academic scholarships and research awards. While pursuing her DMA, she was awarded a 2021 Graduate Research Award through the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts. This scholarship supported Dr. Catlin’s dissertation work for “Backstory: An Album of Original Electroacoustic Flute Pieces with Performance Guide”. She was honored to receive the Bennett Family Scholarship for Orchestral Performance at the University of Georgia and as a promising undergraduate scholar at California State University Long Beach she was awarded the Martin Figoten Scholarship for the Arts, the Richard and Joanna Baker Scholarship for the Arts, and the New York Alumni Club Scholarship.
TEACHING Dr. Catlin maintains a private flute and piano studio in Alpharetta, Georgia. Her students successfully audition into Fulton County and Forsyth County District Honor Bands, All-State Honor Bands, and metro-Atlanta youth orchestras and community orchestras. Dr. Catlin is a flute faculty member at the annual Flute Intensive of North Georgia (FLING!). Every year she teaches a composition class for flute students at FLING!; class topics in past years have introduced flutists to film scoring, electroacoustic composition, melody writing, music theory, and harmony. During her time as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Georgia and faculty member at the UGA Community Music School, she used her extensive pedagogical background to teach applied flute lessons to flute performance undergraduate and graduate students as well as non-music majors.
EDUCATION Dr. Catlin holds a DMA in Flute Performance with a minor in Composition from the University of Georgia. She also holds a MM in Flute Performance from the Manhattan School of Music and a BM in Flute Performance from CSU Long Beach, graduating summa cum laude. As an Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE) Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Georgia, she worked to further interdisciplinary arts research at the university level. Dr. Catlin has studied flute with Angela Jones-Reus, Linda Chesis, Dr. John Barcellona, Rena Urso, Darrin Thaves, Tomiko Hamai Tsai, and Lisa Lawrence. Her composition studies were under the tutelage of Dr. Peter Van Zandt Lane. She has enjoyed performing in masterclasses for world-class flutists including Jim Walker, Carol Wincenc, John Thorne, Donna Shin, and Emily Beynon.
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