5 Questions with Carrie Katz, Founder of Rosin Coven
When it comes to The Edwardian Ball, Carrie Katz is the founder of founders. The originator. The mother. Midnight Rose.
A lover of music and theater from an early age, Katz formed Rosin Coven as an all-female trio in 1996. For the uninitiated, Katz describes the RC sound as “very theatrical, ranging from cabaret, big band and jazz, to rock and more internal, moody explorations. We play music that spans the range and seasons of our experiences—from grief, despair, jealousy and rage, to irreverence, joy, hope and celebration.”
While the band has morphed and grown since its founding, it has also, for the last 18 years, been the beating heart of the Ball. That’s Rosin Coven on stage at the peak of the night, creating the most animated and vivid soundscape for the re-telling of the Gorey story. And that’s Midnight Rose, front and center, singing her heart out.
- What drew you to music in the first place?
Both of my parents are musical people, and my mom took my sister and I to Broadway musicals and cabaret shows starting in elementary school. According to her, my sister and I would see the show, then go into our room for hours with the record, emerging having memorized the music and performing it for our parents. My sister and I would pick the melody or the harmony to sing with each other; I think I probably got my sense of harmony from those experiences. I remember one of my favorite things as a child being alone time in my room with Broadway records, singing and pretending to be the characters. So, really, it was music and theater that were my early loves.
2. What does the name of the band mean?
“Rosin” comes from the stuff the string players use on their bows, the amber substance made from pine and other tree resin. “Coven” is, of course, a group of witches.
I have been interested in magic since I was in junior high, and liked what Starhawk had to say about what makes a coven: that it is a group of people who together, make something more than what each individual can create alone, and who support each other in being all of who they are.
We’ve been together for 21 years and there has always been room for each of us to come out as fully as we want to be, yet it’s the alchemy of what we create together that makes us who we are as a group. I also learned, when deciding on the name, that rosin is also used in many practices as a substance that helps with grounding—that is, used so you can “stick” to whatever you’re doing so the bow doesn’t slip off the string, the gymnast doesn’t slip during her routine, the ball player can keep contact with the ball. Being grounded while flying up to crazy transcendent heights is something I love to practice, as I’d say is true of Rosin Coven as a whole!
3. OK, let’s take a little walk through your catalog. Which songs are you proudest of and why?
Oh gosh. Well, there is a trilogy of songs that are actually on two different albums. It’s made up of the songs “Train,” “Water Don’t Talk to Me,” and “Arrow.” Those songs and the process I was going through when I wrote them (it was over many years), and the process they represent have a lot of meaning for me. Listeners can listen to all three in that order as a set of three that represent the process of transition, which is basically what life is all about isn’t it? The three stages are ending, middle ground, which is a liminal space, and new beginnings.
Another song I’d pick is “The Zookeeper’s Awakening”—I like the playfulness it brings out in people when we play it. It’s an invitation to be silly and get more in touch with our primal selves, and shed the human guises of social construct that we become so accustomed to wearing during most of the day. Plus it’s pretty fun to hear and see people singing, “Hey diddle-dee diddle-dee diddle-dee diddle dee-do!”
I’d also pick “Lion Song,” from our first album, Penumbra. We rarely play that one because it’s so quiet and sparse—only voice and bass—but there is a stripped down-ness to that one that I like as a contrast to the full and lush orchestrations that most people know our sound as.
4. How does your day job as a therapist influence or tie to your creative career, and vice verse?
I came to the realization many years ago that the work I do with my therapy clients and groups is really not so different from what I hope to give through Rosin Coven: that people enter into places inside themselves with curiosity and come out of the experience having felt new parts of themselves, or recognized parts of themselves that may have gone into exile or the Shadow. The invitation to embrace all parts of one’s self, in all our flawed humanity. That sounds pretty lofty when I say it, but I mean it from my heart!
5. What goes through your mind when you see the packed, impeccably dressed crowds from the Edwardian Ball stage?
I feel so inspired! The thing I see is the beauty radiating from everyone, and it’s not simply physical beauty (though there is plenty of that)…it’s a beauty that comes from inside people’s smiles. I can see and feel that people feel a part of something. I think we are all craving that sense of belonging, so I am always looking to connect in that way with the audience, who make up the other half of the experience.
It’s been incredible to see how The Edwardian Ball has grown over the years, an evolution created by the producers, performers, artists, behind the scenes workers, and the people who attend it — this alchemy is what continues to make it a different and uniquely inspiring, alive event each year!
~Interview by Mia Quagliarello
