Katharina Ernst is an Austrian-Malaysian drummer, composer and visual artist based in Berlin. Her work is transgressing boundaries between 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 polyrhythm forms the core of her artistic language.
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, expanded her activities on stage and engaged in numerous collaborations in the music scene, fine arts, dance, theater and film across Europe and beyond.
She received the Start scholarship for Music, the State scholarship for Composition of the Austrian Federal Chancellary and a scholarship of Deutscher Musikfonds. Her work is frequently supported by SKE, Deutscher Musikfonds, Österreichischer Musikfonds and the Austrian Federal Ministery of Arts and Culture. 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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