Katie Martini sang at her first open mic in Anchorage around a year ago. Although she had plenty of experience singing in professional choirs in southern California, this was a different feat.
“I kind of talked myself into feeling like I’m an interpreter of music,” she said. “I’m going to be a really good interpreter of other people’s music. I let myself just believe that for a really long time.”
Martini graduated from Cal State Fullerton, where she studied classical soprano repertoire art songs and pursued a vocal performance degree. She says it was a defining period in her musical journey.
“I feel like it’s a whole past life I have lived,” she said.
Towards the end of college, Martini began questioning if the professional opera singer path was for her, then coronavirus hit about a year later. In 2021, she went and stayed with her mom in northern Louisiana. For the first time, she says she was in a quiet and still place.
“Ideas started coming to me again,” she said. “I think through college the thing that happened, I got to classical musical school, and I’m like, I’m going to learn all these rules. I put down the guitar like the whole time, I really did not touch the guitar.”
She began creating again, and eventually packed her bags and moved to Alaska, where her father lives. While at Rage City Vintage, Martini overheard an announcement from fellow musician Shane Russell about a songwriter’s circle. Initially, she planned to attend and not share, but ended up playing an unfinished song for the other musicians in attendance.
She really wants to take samples from her senior recital and use it in her music; she also loves the idea of doing a west coast tour and being able to go back to Las Angeles and Orange County, where she spent years performing.
“It has been really interesting having had this really intense career in music, and then kind of transitioning into being a singer-songwriter and being a beginner in so many ways,” Martini said. “I was so nervous to get up and do an open mic. I sang in front of lots of people, classical repertoire, it was kind of funny.”
Martini’s debut single, “Father Time & Mother Melancholy.” is out on streaming platforms now..
Sam Davenport is a writer residing in Anchorage. She's a leo and a plant-person, and loves spending quality time with her dog, Aspen. She is a Real Housewives fan and has been called a Bravo historian.
