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press Newcity Chicago "Music 45" Who Rocks Chicago's Music World #35. Kate Simko You’ll find production savant/DJ Kate Simko at the most discerning of dance floors, where cerebral beats and minimal rhythms incite more (emotion) for less (commotion). This sort of musical optimization is evident in her ever-growing body of work, particularly with her production duo Detalles (with Chilean techno star Andres Bucci) catapulting her to the forefront of the techno community. Her own solo work showcases her impressive musical pedigree as a classically trained musician gone club, with current or future releases on the likes of Spectral, Kupei Musica and Chocolate Industries. While her own local performance schedule no longer includes the recently concluded Wake Up! parties (where she served as resident alongside recent Chicago ex-pat Sassmouth), you can still find her spinning records or performing live at Debonair, Sonotheque, Smart Bar and various underground parties.  Jam Session The Simko Life: Chicago Electronic Musician Joins Mosaic Music As Assistant Producer By Amy Wilschke, Screen Magazine — 9/14/2006 To say Kate Simko was born to be a musician is no figure of speech. Coming from a long line of musicians – her father plays piano and his mother still plays church organ in her mid-80s – Simko says learning to play the piano wasn’t a choice in her family. At least they chose the right instrument, because learning piano has developed into an exciting career for Simko. “We have a long tradition of piano, so it was pretty mandatory that you take piano at least and see if you’re good,” Simko says. “Not everyone’s good but everyone has to take it and see if [the talent] is passed on to them.” She began playing at the age of five and enjoyed it so much she continued, ultimately choosing to study piano in college when she was undecided on her major. She started at the University of Miami before transferring to Northwestern University, where she combined her classically-trained piano skills with electronic music in the school’s music technology program. “I was there for five years and I started taking jazz piano also,” she says. “[That way] I could learn how to improvise instead of just playing printed music, which was really all I could do at the time.” Simko also studied experimental composition in Chile, where she lived for a year. She combined this training with the skills she learned from her jazz lessons, applied them to her skills in electronic music, and began composing original music about five years ago. While still at Northwestern, Simko served as the music director for the dance and hip-hop genres for three years. She says these genres were her main musical interest, and that’s why Simko also began DJing on the radio in 1998. In her side work as a DJ, she has spun shows around the U.S. and in Toronto and plays at various venues around Chicago. She will also be heading to Berlin and Paris soon to showcase her original musical talents. Her commercial composing career began almost a year ago when she was hired by Mosaic Music Executive Producer Rich Rankin. Simko says she was interested in joining the company because of its forward-thinking approach to music and lack of all things corporate. “She had a combination of things that couldn’t be beat,” says Rankin. “I was looking for someone who was creative, musical and had a good grasp of technology. Kate has a great personality [and] she understands how to communicate really well.” Rankin says this ability to communicate is important in the audio field because many times clients will approach Mosaic with a verbal description of how they’d like something to sound, which then needs to be translated into music. “[Her] ability to compose was fresh and unique and different from a lot of the stuff that I’m doing and have been doing, so it was a nice compliment,” Rankin says. “She knows her technology inside and out. It’s nice that I can have somebody who knows my technology as well as I do, or even better.” Simko agrees that the ability to translate client requests into music is one of the challenges of working in the commercial world. “I like it, though,” she says. “I think it’s another kind of a challenge for someone to tell you what they want and to create that rather than have a totally blank slate. “With my own music, I turn on my computer, I see how I feel that day and I can do whatever I want,” she adds. “Working with clients is a neat challenge because they tell you what they want and you have to come through and produce it.” She says another challenge that comes about when working with client projects is that the music she creates for commercials is less personal than what she creates on her own. Since there are no restraints on time or concept, Simko can easily spend a month perfecting a certain sound or beat until she feels a song is complete and can stand alone as artwork. With clients, however, she has to create something specific in a short amount of time and the piece has to be approved by the client as having been done “right.” For Mosaic, Simko has several projects pending. She has a potential film score for Sundance and a definite film score for a documentary on the Fermi Lab, as well as a pending radio spot and some engineering work on a children’s album. She also released a record of original music in August and is set to release another one in November. |