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Kate Olson

Kate Olson is an improvising saxophonist and music educator based in Seattle, WA. Since moving to Seattle in 2010, she has done her best to infiltrate the local, regional and international improvised music scenes. She can be heard performing with her own projects KO SOLO and KO ELECTRIC, and as a collaborator with the Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble and Electric Circus (led by Wayne Horvitz), Birch Pereira and the Gin Joints, Battlestar Kalakala (formerly West Seattle Soul/the Pulsations) and with such Seattle staples as the Seattle Men's and Women's Choruses and cabaret producers Can Can Presents and Verlaine & McCann. Kate has a BA in Music (Jazz Emphasis) from the University of Wyoming and an MM in Improvisation from the University of Michigan, and is currently on the jazz faculty at Pacific Lutheran University.

Kate’s international resume continues to grow, including performances in Russia, Latvia, Turkey, Switzerland, South Korea, Cuba, and Slovakia. She has appeared on stage with Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveros, Bobby Previte, Skerik, Patricia Barber, Elvis Costello, Brandi Carlile, Sir Mix-a-lot, Seattle Repertory Theater, Cafe Nordo, the Seattle Repertory Jazz Orchestra and Seattle Symphony Pops, among others. Kate was nominated in 2011 and 2013 for the Earshot Golden Ear Award in the Emerging Artist category, and in 2014 and 2016, she was nominated for the Best NW Instrumentalist Category, and in 2016 her band KO Ensemble was also nominated as best NW Alternative Group. In 2020 the KO Ensemble won the Golden Ear Award for best NW Instrumental Group and in 2022, KO Electric was nominated for Best Alternative Group.

Neil Welch: The Ink Around It

Read "The Ink Around It" reviewed by Ian Gwin

by Ian Gwin
November 17, 2021

Music is ephemeral by nature. The conical airflow of a saxophone could be nothing more than “airy charm"—as the magician Prospero in The Tempest might have it—but this fails to substantiate its power. Though the rousing craft of Seattle composer and saxophonist Neil Welc does. In his acclaimed duo Bad Luck with drummer Chris Icasiano, he's “plucked up / the pine and cedar" through a wildly generative approach to the tenor. Combining profound humility with a tectonic techique, Welch approaches ...

Extended Analysis

Wayne Horvitz/The Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble: At The Reception, Wayne Horvitz: 55: Music And Dance In Concrete

by John Ephland
December 3, 2014

Wayne Horvitz is a musical universe unto himself. Has been for well over 35 years. And it's not just his stick-to-it-ive-ness that continues to make his music so damn engaging, a contrariness redefined. Consider these two recent releases as prime examples. The composer/bandleader/keyboardist (who turns 60 in 2015) has a musical history that just might grab you by the throat, if not coax you into some kind of mesmerizing trance. 55: Music And Dance In Concrete and At The Reception ...

Album Review

Wayne Horvitz/The Royal Room Collective Music Ensemble: At The Reception

Read "At The Reception" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
November 3, 2014

Wayne Horvitz already has lovely. It's a tool he wields with ease in his music, be it in his Gravitas Quartet of piano/trumpet/cello/bassoon, his Sweeter Than The Day acoustic quartet or the electric Zony Mash. He even brought lovely to John Zorn's shocking Naked City bands of the 1990s. Horvitz has the ability to distill music, be it classical, jazz, film, or free, down to the essence of melody and harmony.He applies that lovely to his little big ...

Kate Olson: Saxophonist in Syrinx Effect and K.O. Ensemble and a collaborator in Ask the Ages and Electric Circus, Olson is renowned for her deeply expressive and mesmerizing virtuosity in both band and solo formats in experimental and jazz idioms. Her solo work especially will appeal to fans of pioneering minimalist composers like Terry Riley and Pauline Oliveros. --Dave Segal, The Stranger

And it’s not all strange and curious music from Olson. Her KO Ensemble is straight-ahead jazz, a fastball right over the heart of the plate, and it’s just as terrific as her more unconventional projects. What’s especially gratifying about this project is that it provides her the space to reveal the extent of her lyricism and to bring it to full bloom. The melodic fragments she spins and weaves into the framework of her jazz-on-the-fringes music certainly possesses an evocative beauty, but to hear her exhale a melody in a more familiar environment really allows her talent to shine.--Bird is the Worm