Today we’d like to introduce you to Katherine Held.
Hi Katherine, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I am an artist from Colombia. My journey in music began when I was in my teens, I came to the States to visit my family and I asked for a bass guitar, it has always been my favorite instrument. Later on, I started college in Bogotá and graduated from Colombian popular music. I also spent a year in Atlanta, where I attended the Atlanta Institute of Music, that year shaped most of my career as a bassist. Over the years, I’ve become more attracted to writing music, mostly songs so today my main focus is on composing and playing the bass.
I moved to Miami about a year ago, this is one of the most interesting cities in Latin Music and I am falling in love with the musical scene. I have a nice “family” of music friends and I feel blessed. Not so long ago I got to play at the Miami Beach Bandshell with Paula Arenas, I’ve also recorded music videos and performed in different scenarios with very promising artists like Gonza Silva. My songs have been recorded by several Latin artists and I try to join songwriting sessions in town as often as I can.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As a musician, you must learn how to overcome frustration and with a very disciplined mind use it to your advantage. As a woman, you face the reality of a very masculine industry, where you have to prove your value even twice as much as a man. And also you have to maintain your professionalism to ensure that your success is yours, getting involved romantically in the industry has made me go behind in different scenarios where my value is attached to my partner and not to my qualities.
Another struggle is the management of your resources, playing music is the most satisfying thing for me, but along the way, you realize that being an instrumentalist is often not enough to live a quality life. To get paid as much as you need for gigs, you must dedicate yourself to practice and play as often as you can and a lot of times the amount gigs pay is very low. So you need to earn money in many ways involving music like writing, producing, and business.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I became a Bassist at a very young age, and most of my work has been to accompany several artists in their careers. I love this side of my role in music, but I’ve also developed my musicianship towards songwriting and by doing these two I believe the complement is beautiful.
I moved to Miami around a year ago, I’ve already performed at the Unsin Festival (2022 and 2023), at the Miami Beach Bandshell (May 2023) and Calle 8 Festival (Feb. 2023) I feel lucky and grateful to be a part of this new music movement in Miami.
I love using my musicianship to serve in music, I love to contribute to the musical journey of the artists I get to play with and to become an important part of their show.
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
Well, I believe the music industry is changing every day. We are creating a nice collective of independent artists in Miami and my vision is to enhance that movement into a profitable town for musicians, like Nashville. The biggest change that is needed is to include musicians and creators in the music industry.
No one knows the industry better than we do, with our help and other business professionals Music and Arts can become very profitable in Miami. The evolution of trends is very hectic, we are now in the Short Video trend and this has opened a whole new set of possibilities for us.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @kt.held
- Linkedin: Katherine Held
Image Credits
@aisr.photo – Cayendo Concert 2023 by Gonza Silva
@Javilambertini – Calle 8 Fest, Mechy
