Katy Wehr Biography
Katy Wehr grew up along the banks of the Minnehaha Creek near Minneapolis, MN, USA, and was captivated by stories, history and the natural world. Katy has a pure, lyric voice, honed by years of training, choirs and musical theatre, but, for her, music is never just an end in itself. Songwriting is a way of exploring ideas, feelings, stories and worship, and recording and performing is a way to share those things with others.
After several years in a band called Porch Light, Katy moved to Vancouver, BC in 2003 for a Christianity and the Arts masters program at Regent College. The ocean, mountains and nostalgia for her native lakes and woods filled her music with vivid landscapes. These became the backdrop for The Smell of Rain (released March 2005), a group of songs searching for a sense of home in the midst of struggle and resolution.
Music is a communal art and Katy Wehr's second album, In Others' Words, explores the idea of music as conversation. By creating story songs from someone else's perspective or setting someone else's words to music, Katy continues discussions ranging from innocence to experience, from misplaced expectations to reality, from doubt to trust. She invites you to join the conversation.
For both these albums, Katy is very grateful for the host of musicians who gave their time and talent, to her producer, Spencer Capier, and to her friends and family who gave their love and support.
For most of 2008-2010 she was living in Cambridge, England where she worked for the Simeon Centre and Ridley Hall and did lots of music for worship and events for both the Centre and the college. She also studied Byzantine chant while a student at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, also in Cambridge.
Now back in Minnesota, she works at both Church of the Cross and The Institute for Biblical and Theological Studies at North Central University. She loves using music where she can and is working on some new songs that seem to have a common theme of pilgrimage. Stay tuned!
Katy's music has been featured on numerous radio shows and podcasts across the US and Europe including BBC Northern Ireland's Rhythm and Soul, BBC Southern Counties' The Sunday Breakfast Show, National Public Radio's Women in Music with Laney Goodman and Public Radio in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Carolina, New York, Washington and California. The song "Minnehaha" from The Smell of Rain has also been used as daily theme music for The Hugh Hewitt Show (nationally syndicated talk radio) since November of 2005.
KATY WEHR'S CIRCLE OF FIFTHS
(stuff she likes and is connected to)
- The Institute for Biblical and Theological Studies at North Central University
- Church of the Cross- Hopkins, MN, USA
- MacLaurin CSF at the University of Minnesota-Katy often leads their Patristic Reading Groups
- The Benedictine Center at St. Paul's Monastery, Maplewood, MN
- Regent College, Vancouver, BC, Canada
- Simeon Centre, Ridley Hall, Cambridge, UK
- Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, Cambridge, UK
Katy at the Minnehaha Falls, 3 January 2006
