Katharina Ernst is an austrian-malaysian drummer, composer and visual artist based in Berlin. Her work is transgressing the fields of music, fine arts and performance. She often uses rhythmic complexity to model the conditions and developments of the individual and the collective. A particular focus on polyrhythmics forms the core of her artistic language.
At age nine, Katharina started playing the drums, with an early interest in polyrhythmic, odd and chaotic structures. She studied abstract painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Simultaneously, she expanded her activities on stage, which, until today, has led to noumerous collaborations in the arts and music scene, dance, theater and film across Europe and beyond.
Katharina received the Start scholarship for Music and the State scholarship for Composition of the Austrian Federal Chancellary, and was supported several times by SKE, Deutscher Musikfonds and Österreichischer Musikfonds. She was among the selected artists for the European platform Shape in 2019 and received the H13 prize for Performance Art in 2024. In 2025, she founded her own record label, Extrametric Records.
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