We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Katrina Sotera a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Katrina, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The most transformative project I’ve worked on would have to be my debut EP, Notes on Becoming. Before releasing this EP, my relationship with music was surrounded by anxiety, fear, and impostor syndrome. I wrote music in my own little bubble, and it took a lot of urging from my community in order to perform. I knew that I could sing and that I loved writing songs, but I never felt that my music sounded special or unique enough to release professionally. It took years to break through that wall. Once, I had a coworker, a former member of the Grammy Award-nominated group Sweet Honey in the Rock, tell me that my voice was a gift, and if I did not use my gift, it was a disservice. That moment happened almost 10 years ago, but I remember so clearly, telling myself to move past my fears and release my music. Finally, later that year I publicly sang my song “Monster” for the first time. It eventually became the single for Notes on Becoming.

COVID was also a huge turning point for me. It acted as a reality check that I had one life to live and express myself. I couldn’t make any more excuses for the lack of time. I spent the first few months of lockdown writing a song called Tidalwave about the cyclical nature of time, life, and death. I remember dragging the wav file into a folder on my hard drive and realizing I had enough songs for several EPs. All the songs were acoustic and I wanted to create larger arrangements to support the storytelling, so I reached out to flutist and producer Robin Wong, and engineer and musician Nate Mendelsohn, to help me record the project. Before I knew it, I released my debut EP, Notes on Becoming in October 2022, the culmination of a six-year journey.

Notes on Becoming tells my story of becoming and accepting myself as a musician. Having a full project under my belt opened so many doors for me as a working artist – I performed at City Winery NYC, Culture LIC, and DROM NYC all because of this EP. Notes on Becoming was the starting point of my musical career and represents what I do through my art – transmute pain into power, joy, and creation.

Katrina, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My parents like to say I began to sing before I could talk. By trade I am a vocalist, but I consider myself a musician and artist above all. I was privileged to be classically trained in vocal studies at LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts, where I logged my 10,000 hours into musicianship. While I feel the most intimate connection to singing and songwriting, I enjoy the multidisciplinary nature of independent artistry. It’s a lot of work, but I try to approach every aspect of the creative process as an opportunity to get in touch with a different creative muscle, from production ideas in the studio, to editing my own marketing materials.

Working on the music video of my recent single “Beauty” required wearing a lot of new hats, but it was the most fun I’ve ever had. As a nerdy sci-fi girl from Queens, I jumped at the opportunity to insert my art into the science fiction archives. The Beauty music video follows me, an artist from Queens, as I tell the story of a short, sweet summer fling that occurred (plot twist) in space. My favorite part of creating the video was filming at iconic Queens, NY landmarks. In one scene, I perform in front of the Flushing Meadows Corona Park Globe to represent me being in space. Every choice from the locations to my jewelry was intentional and rooted in personal experience. Working on the Beauty music video allowed me to develop my skills as a director and producer, and taught me to trust in my vision.

I also enjoy collaborating with other artists. I tend to be very detail oriented in my personal life, so I find that collaborating allows me to let go of the details and focus on the big picture, making space for something completely new that I would not have developed alone. One of my favorite collaborations was with Kacia Flórez, for the Keepsake House show, Women of the House at City Winery NYC. For our set we performed my single, “Monster” and translated the second verse into Spanish. It was so special to create a bilingual version of my song that my Latino family could connect with. Because of that performance, Kacia and I plan to record our bilingual version to release together in 2025!

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

The biggest transformative factor in my creative journey has been therapy. As I mentioned earlier, my music journey began full of anxiety. Before therapy, I knew that I loved music, but I didn’t know why I was blocking my own blessings. My therapist helped me answer questions that I didn’t even know to ask, set realistic goals, and helped me be accountable to my own dreams.

I am always grateful for my therapist’s support in this journey, for helping me confront the ways I would self-sabotage. It seems a simple feat today, but three years ago I never imagined I would be a professional working musician. For anyone who is struggling with feeling worthy of being an artist, or feeling self-conscious or insecure about their artistic practice, I highly recommend finding a therapist that is a good fit for you and makes you feel seen. I truly would not be where I am today without therapy.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The main lesson I had to unlearn as an artist was my commitment to perfection. One of the beautiful things about going into the studio is that you go in with all this work prepared, and you walk out with something completely different and better than you could have ever imagined. You prepare your demos, write out the notes, the chords, the sheet music, and the lyrics. But the experience of recording is completely different. You hear every note in greater detail, you have new options you hadn’t considered in musical instruments and engineering. The ideas are flooding in from everyone involved. I’ve always been someone who prefers having a set schedule and plan, but in the studio, I’ve learned to enjoy the beauty in the unexpected. In fact, sometimes the best ideas are the unplanned ones. Now the minute we start to veer off track, I’m excited to see what new sounds we’ll unearth from my music.

Don’t get me wrong, I still lapse into perfectionism as my musical collaborators can attest. But I’ve learned that music doesn’t only tell the story we write, it also captures the journey of our artistry in that moment, mistakes and all.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.katrinasotera.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katrinasotera/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@katrinasotera

Image Credits

Alex Joseph, Hari Nandu, Robyn Bynoe