Katy Carr is a 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 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

REVIEWS & FEATURES               

 ’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)

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 ‘One of the most unusual, passionate and intriguing concept albums of the year’ ★★★★ THE GUARDIAN (Paszport 2012)

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 ‘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) 

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‘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)

 
Above Katy Carr performs the Polish Folk Song – O moj rozmarynie on Polish TV – the audience included WWII Veterans, Holocaust survivors and the President of Poland.
 

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 ‘Dark drama, intensely melodic folk’ ★★★★ MOJO (Providence 2020)

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 ‘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.

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‘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)

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‘Bold,  innovative, brave.’ FOLK RADIO (Providence 2020)

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‘Paszport is truly exceptional’ ROCK N REEL ★★★★(Paszport 2012)

RADIO / TV & INTERVIEWS

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

 

CONCERTS & OUTREACH

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.