Austrian-malaysian artist Katharina Ernst, born in 1987 in Korneuburg and raised in Vienna, started playing the drums at age nine, with an early focus on polymetric, odd and chaotic structures. She studied abstract painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and simultaneously started touring worldwide with projects in the music and performance context. In her own work, she puts emphasis on transgressing the fields of music, fine arts and choreography, celebrating a hybrid notion of the term »composition«, and allows herself for various forms of expression and translation. She spent eight years living mainly in France before moving to Berlin.
Katharina received the START scholarship for Music and the State scholarship for Composition of the Austrian Federal Chancellary, and was supported several times by Deutscher Musikfonds and Österreichischer Musikfonds. She was among the selected artists for the European platform SHAPE. She received the H13 prize for Performance Art in 2024. In 2025, she founded her own record label, Extrametric Records.
Katharina has collaborated with and received commissions from artists such as Florentina Holzinger, Christina Kubisch, Michael von zur Mühlen and Kate McIntosh. Her ensemble pieces have been performed by Klangforum Wien and Black Page Orchestra. Her performances, compositions and visual art have been presented in the context of Kunsten Festival des Arts/ Brussel, iMAL Festival/ Brussels, A l’Arme Festival/ Berlin, Wiener Festwochen, musikprotokoll, Mattatoio/ Rome, Jazz em Agosto/ Lissabon, HAU Berlin, Deutsches Theater/ Berlin, WUK, Cafe OTO/ London, Wiener Musikverein, Burgtheater/ Vienna, PACT Zollverein/ Essen, ars electronica, Theatre de la Ville/ Paris, Arsenale/ Venice, Museum of Modern Art/ Zagreb, cave12/ Genf, Ruhrtriennale, TQW, ZKM.
