CATALINA GÓMEZ  

Detailed Biography

 

Born in Bogota, Colombia, Catalina started her music studies at El Bosque University in 2007, where studied the basic cycle in Jazz with Javier Perez Sandoval (guitar and arranging), Francy Montalvo (piano) and William Maestre (piano and arranging) and then did the professional cycle in Musical Arrangements with Ana Margarita Giraldo (arranging, composition and orchestration) and Pedro Sarmiento (theory and composition). Her dissertation 'Music for Twelfth Night: Technical aspects required in the composition of incidental music for theatre' earned her a distinction as meritorious degree project and an honours degree with the highest GPA in her class. In 2014 won a COLFUTURO scholarship and earned the degree with distinction in MMus Composition at Bath Spa University with James Saunders and Joe Duddell in England. 

 

During the development of her BA dissertation, she entered the Teatro Libre School of Drama where she worked as composer, musical director and consultant for the students' productions. During this period she had the opportunity to work in more that three plays every semester with directors Cristian Ballesteros, Cesar Morales and Nelson Celis in plays like Twelfth Night (National Tour), Blood Wedding, Hippolytus, El corrido de Pedro Paramo (National Tour), French Farces (National Tour), La Candida Erendira, Midsummer's Night Dream and The Little Prince (National Tour) among others.  Thanks to her work with the Drama School she was invited to work as a Composer for the professional Company of the Foundation Teatro Libre of Bogota, where she did original music and worked as assistant director for Cristian Ballesteros' production of Piedad Bonnett's Algun dia nos Iremos,  the play was part of Medellin's Theatre Festival in 2013. Also under the direction of Nelson Celis worked as a composer for his production of The Imaginary Invalid and Sound Designer and Composer for Bonnet's new play Maxima Seguridad. Parallel to her work with the Teatro Libre she worked on the production of Apesta with the company Exilia2 Teatro, the play was winner of a scholarship for young creators and participated in the Iberoamerican Theatre Festival of Bogotá.

 

In 2013 Catalina joined a group of young artists looking for a place to explore new forms of theatre and making it available for more audiences, this is how they co-founded La Compañía Nacional de las Artes (CNA). With them she has worked as composer and musical director for The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Little Prince, The Butterflies Jump to the Avism, the Oddysey and Romeo and Juliet, a love story sang on the rooftops. Currently she is working on increasing her concert music repertoir and improving the music department at the CNA with the creation of the CNA's new music ensemble to promote performances of contemporary composers in Colombia.