Katie Morell
Katie Morell is an artist-teacher in the Northeastern Pennsylvania area. She is on faculty of Marywood University teaching applied clarinet and select music courses, and at the University of Scranton teaching music history in Scranton, Pennsylvania. She is a sought-after studio teacher and performer, maintaining a successful private clarinet studio and performs freelance throughout the area.
An avid learner and educator, Katie has an extensive background in education and performance. She has taught private lessons and classroom music to a range of age groups from elementary school to collegiate studies. She was a member of The Ohio State Woodwind Quintet, which performed for at-risk students in urban Columbus schools and educated students about musical instruments. The group also performed in various venues around the area to promote awareness of the arts and music education. She has assisted with the Youth Bands of Marywood, which operates under the Conn-Selmer Division of Education, headed by Dr. Tim Lautzenheiser. The Youth Bands of Marywood bring students from all over Northeastern Pennsylvania to prepare and perform various repertoire, while giving students access to esteemed conductors, educators, composers, soloists and ensembles. She also has been Assistant Director and musical instructor for Marywood University’s summer music camp, Camp Crescendo.
As a performer, Katie has performed with professional ensembles such as the Pennsylvania Centre Orchestra, the Nittany Valley Symphony, the Altoona Symphony, the Westerville Symphony, the New Albany Symphony and the Central Ohio Symphony, as well as being a musician for the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. She has been as guest performer at the bi-annual Pennsylvania State University Single Reed Summit. She currently performs in the Wyoming Seminary Civic Orchestra, and various freelance and collaborative performances throughout Northeast Pennsylvania.
She has performed with various ensembles in acclaimed venues such as Heinz Hall (Pittsburgh, PA), Severance Hall (Cleveland, OH), John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, D.C.), as well as internationally in the Sixth International Orchestra Festival in Zaragoza, Spain, and the 2005 Flicorno D’Oro international band festival in Riva del Garda, Italy.
Katie has participated in chamber music, large ensemble music and new music collectives with today’s established and upcoming composers. Some of these composers include Steven Bryant, Michael Daugherty, Mohammed Fairouz, Michael Gilbertson, John Mackey, Carter Pann, Steve Reich, and Joseph Schwantner.
Along with musical experience, Katie has collaborative arts experience such as performing “La Création du Monde” by Darius Milhaud with choreography by the Columbus BalletMet and recording music for flute, piano, and clarinet for the exhibit “Perry’s Victory: The Battle of Lake Erie” in the Toledo Art Museum. Most recently she has performed with the locally established Synaesthesia Social featuring Emperor Vanity, and is currently performing with the “Nefarious Musical Accompaniment for Silent Films” project. Synaesthesia Social, founded by artist Ted Michalowski, combines live music, drawing, poetry, and theatre: the performers are the subjects for the artists as well as the entertainment for the audience. “Nefarious Musical Accompaniment for Silent Films” is a project founded in 2016, which creates musical accompaniment to silent films using various instrumentation and compositional techniques including synthesizers, theremin, and pitch and rhythmic notation of the human voice.
Dedicated to her young clarinetists, Katie’s students have participated in programs such as the PMEA All-State Band, the Penn State Honors Institute and the NEPA Philharmonic mentoring program, as well as accepted into various programs for further collegiate music study.
Katie is a graduate of The Ohio State University with a Doctor of Musical Arts in Clarinet Performance and a Master of Music in Clarinet Performance, studying under Mr. James Pyne and Dr. Caroline Hartig. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Music Education and Clarinet Performance from The Pennsylvania State University, studying under Mr. Smith Toulson and Dr. Anthony J. Costa. Katie Morell is a Backun Artist and performs on MoBa clarinets.