Catrin Dowd

catrin dowd
PhD Student in Music/TAPS
Cohort Year: 2018
Education: BA, Yale, 2015; MM, McGill University, 2017

TAPS/Music

Catrin Dowd is a joint PhD candidate in Music and Theater and Performance Studies. Her dissertation asks: what does the cold war practice of geopolitical “orchestration” have to do with music?  Catrin looks at and listens to sonic negotiations during hostage crises, western classical music on the radio during coups, and various artistic “re-orchestrations” of these events. She also researches and explores with students how the U.S. Supreme Court’s operatic performances since the Clinton impeachment have facilitated the myth of an independent judiciary.

Catrin has played bass at the Aspen, Mortizburg, and Lucerne Festivals, and devised theater at Casa Yuyachkani and the Centre for the Less Good Idea. She hopes to bicycle around Lake Michigan before finishing her PhD.