Katy Carr is an award winning British singer, songwriter, recording artist with Polish roots and has self-released six albums. Her recent trilogy Paszport (2012) – Polonia (2015) Providence (2020) has been inspired by the WWII experience in Poland. A musician, aviator and multi-instrumentalist (piano, ukulele, banjolele, vintage keyboardist) she has performed her music internationally with live concerts & tours, intergenerational outreach workshops throughout Great Britain, Poland, Europe (France, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Germany) USA, Mexico, Canada as well as connecting with her audiences via live streaming during 2020/21. Katy Carr’s music has been played on a number of high profile radio stations including the BBC, Radio Trojka, Polish Radio, Robert Elms BBC Radio London, BBC Radio 4 Today program, BBC Radio 3 Late Junction, Polski FM, Jedynka Radio 1, Max Reinhardt’s Late Lunch Show on Soho Radio, BBC World Service’s Global Beats. A folk musician at heart, Katy’s initial performances first started with British folk scene clubs but since the rediscovery of her Polish roots in 2009, her music has appealed to international audiences across Europe, USA, Canada and Poland. The artist has performed with her group Katy Carr and the Aviators at a wide variety of venues and music festivals including Glastonbury (UK), Bestival (UK), WOMAD (UK), The Royal Opera House (UK), BBC Broadcasting House(UK), Warsaw Uprising Museum (PL), Chopin Theatre (USA). Katy has been awarded Poland’s Pro Patria medal for her humanitarian, musical outreach work & announced as an Ambassador of Polish History in the UK, the Polish Daily Award for Culture, Music Star of Polish Heritage at the Wyspa TV All Stars Awards and nominated for the National Lottery Good Causes Award, London Music Award, Independent Music Awards, and Best Artist at the Songlines Music Awards Katy Carr’s song ‘Mała little Flower,’ was inspired by Irena Gut Opdyke who was a Polish Catholic girl (b. 1922), who saved the lives of twelve Jewish friends by hiding them in the basement of an SS officer’s house and became a resistance fighter with the Polish Partisans, code name ‘Mała’ meaning ‘little’ in Polish (423,054 views on youtube/3.9k positive likes) Above Katy Carr performs Kommander’s Car with the PassionART orchestra (150 musicians) at the Jagiellonian University of Krakow’s Auditorium Maximum in honour of the victims of WWII. Katy Carr performs at the BBC for BBC DJ Rita Ray’s Global Beats program and explain the inspiration for her song ‘Bomba’ which was inspired by a machine designed in 1938 by the Polish Cipher Bureau cryptologist Marian Rejewski, allowing the Poles to break German Enigma-machine ciphers for the first time. Below Katy’s song Kommander’s Car is about the last 80m of Polish boy scout Kazimierz Piechowski’s infamous and dramatical escape from Auschwitz 20th June 1942. (video 196,236 views on youtube / 1.9k positive likes). Katy produced a short documentary film entitled ‘Kazik and the Kommander’s Car which showed her presenting the film to Kazik and his reaction to the song. Katy Carr performs the 1930s song from interwar Poland Miłość ci wszystko wybaczy (Love will Forgive Everything) for the Polish Cultural Institute’s #PolishCultureKatchUp series in Lockdown 2020 ’16 compositions about forgotten or never before acknowledged Polish figures… a jaunty effort full of charm and verve with a melancholy undertow’ ★★★★ THE INDEPENDENT (Polonia 2015) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ‘One of the most unusual, passionate and intriguing concept albums of the year’ ★★★★ THE GUARDIAN (Paszport 2012) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ‘A truly singular creation’ ★★★★ THE GUARDIAN (Polonia 2015) ‘I fell in love with old‑school glamour’ : The Nottingham-raised singer on her passion for the 40s, her Polish roots – and her pilot’s licence THE GUARDIAN (feature 2020) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ‘Angular, theatrical, Klezmeric. Intriguing’ ★★★★ THE INDEPENDENT (Paszport 2012) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ‘The prism of Carr’s grand obsession with Poland in the interwar years and after, are brought to vivid life’ MOJO RISING (Polonia 2015) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ‘Dark drama, intensely melodic folk’ ★★★★ MOJO (Providence 2020) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ‘Melodic history lessons. Katy Carr is an unusual and original singer songwriter. She is fascinated by history, has a gift for strong, upbeat melodies and manages to match research with unashamed emotion.’ ★★★★ SONGLINES (Providence 2020) Below Katy Carr performs Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah live on Polish TV in Central Warsaw. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ‘Ambitious, quirky and rich in folk melodies, the vignettes… are never less than immaculate’ SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE ★★★★ (Paszport 2012) Below Katy Carr performs Mała Little Flower in Krakow with the PassionArt 150 piece orchestra.
Chatting with Katy Carr: ‘I’d like to inspire people my own age to get involved with Poland again by sharing these stories from the Polish past, and the people that managed to achieve such incredible things with such little support’ COSMOPOLITAN REVIEW (feature 2012) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ‘Bold, innovative, brave.’ FOLK RADIO (Providence 2020) _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ ‘Paszport is truly exceptional’ ROCK N REEL ★★★★(Paszport 2012) Katy Carr has been played on a number of high profile radio stations from the BBC to Trojka in Poland. Examples of a few include : Robert Elms BBC Radio London, BBC Radio 4 Today program, BBC Radio 3 Late Junction, Polski FM, Jedynka Radio 1 Poland , Max Reinhardt’s Late Lunch Show on Soho Radio, BBC World Service’s Global Beats, Katy Carr and the Aviators perform ‘Wojtek’ for a live performance for Poland’s music station ‘Radio Trojka’ below. Katy Carr performs with music producer, cellist Rupert Gillett for the Midi Music Company CICAS sessions – her single Miracle on the Vistula Polish TV Performance with Choir Below Katy Carr’s Heart Poland / Building Bridges intergenerational outreach project with British school students – this video shows the elements of the workshops, storytelling/written work/ artwork/ music inspired by Polish boy scout Kazik Piechowski’s escape from Auschwitz.
RADIO / TV & INTERVIEWS
CONCERTS & OUTREACH