A native of the San Fernando Valley in the suburbs of Los Angeles, Katie will be a senior in the fall at Hamilton High School Music Academy. One of four children, all of whom are musicians, her older brother Dominic, a bass player, was a VJF Workshop student in 2003. Katie has studied both classical bass and jazz bass, as well as jazz voice and has recently taken up the piano. A member of the GRAMMY Jazz Ensemble for the past three years, she has also been a member of the California All-State Jazz Band, California All-State Jazz Choir, her high school Jazz Ensemble (instrumental and vocal), and the Colburn School Jazz Ensemble and Orchestra da Camera for the past 5 years. She recently won the Down Beat Award for Outstanding Vocal Performance and the Los Angeles Jazz Society Shelley Manne New Talent Award. One of her goals for the Workshop is “to enhance my jazz vocabulary and ‘grow my ears .