About
Rhiannon Catalyst is a changemaker (hence the name Catalyst, but she says “you can’t rest on those laurels, I have to earn the name every day”).
Typically she creates change as an immersive artist, vocalist, producer, author, speaker, and community builder. She is professionally a tour and event producer with 25 years of experience and accolades. Known first for her voice and her ear & eye for incredible talent, Catalyst is now also known for a specialized focus in the intersection of global cultures, art, and science. For the last four years her career has been flourishing around accessibility in arts and education, and she’s now producing global events in varied parts of the world beyond home (most recently in Ibiza, Prague, and Hiroshima, Japan).
As a producer, curator, manager, event, team and community builder, Rhiannon Catalyst has been at the helm of highly awarded multimedia art, music, technology, events, venues, and conferences for nearly two decades. Much of her work celebrates global and cross-cultural influences… the place where cultures and disciplines intersect, overlap, and inspire one another. Like the intersection of art and science and the field of creative technology that’s become both her professional and artistic focus. She now manages events, conferences, and virtual reality projects for creators at the forefront of the convergence of art, technology, climate science, and space exploration. All of her work and personal projects are designed to inspire people and facilitate the joining of forces to create change. That’s what a Catalyst is. That part is simple. It’s all about awe, wonder, beauty, and how connected everything truly is.
In 2017 she began managing tours and virtual reality content for Bella Gaia, an award-winning immersive and multimedia stage show inspired by the experience of astronauts seeing earth from space for the first time (called the “overview effect”) that communicates- without words- the interconnectedness of all things on earth by combining NASA supercomputer data-visualizations, orbital views of Earth, and live performances of music and dance from around the world. Bella Gaia also presents a virtual reality experience (which she personally presented to scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labs last year), and a planetarium show at several locations around the world (in what is known as “full-dome.”)
In 2017 Catalyst also stage managed events for Creative Tech Week and NY Developer Week, and curated and MC’ed a live painting and sound event called “Drawing Sound” for the Rubin Museum’s of Art’s Annual Block Party. She catalyzed a relationship between Bella Gaia and Hey Mister (an NYC-based company specializing in cutting edge motion graphics and VR) and collaboratively created original data visualizations of NYC traffic patterns that they presented together at the Worlds’ Fair Nano.
The stage for all of this was first set in motion at the beginning of her career when she became (at only 21 years old) the Music Director and Stage Manager for The Lunatarium- a now legendary 20,000 square ft DIY multimedia venue with 30 ft ceilings that occupied the waterfront next door to the Manhattan Bridge with an uninterrupted view of the NYC skyline. With a small core crew and massive and passionate community, they built the space from an empty concrete and glass box into a highly awarded venue that revitalized and helped create the signature culture of the Brooklyn underground.
As a multidisciplinary artist, vocalist, and sound designer, Rhiannon Catalyst creates site-specific immersive performances and installations using sound, light, movement, and sometimes words and scents to tell stories. She designs, records, and performs sonic and theatrical pieces designed to celebrate the unique acoustics of spaces and illuminate the cultural and historical significance of particular locations. Her work often involves field recordings of rivers, oceans, and crossroads, and reverb in ships, caves, and museums… places of great cultural exchange and intense resonance. These works often take the form of mythic and ceremonial performances in collaborative art and theater events. She has a history of performing and writing songs for nearly twenty years with DJs and live electronic bands like Subatomic Sound System for audiences ranging in size from 7 to 7,000 along with her extensive immersive theater background.
In 2017 Rhiannon was invited to sing and speak underneath the Space Shuttle Endeavor to open the mainstage of Yuri’s Night (the “global space party”) at the California Science Center on a bill with Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart, Anousheh Ansari, Walter Koenig, and many more, and was invited to speak at the California Institute of Technology as a result of that performance and speech. She sang a medley of moon and star-themed songs she crafted for the occasion along with guiding guests through BELLA GAIA’s Virtual Reality experience.
Rhiannon’s most recent works include performances singing and dancing with front and rear projections in collaboration with VJs, events featuring scents she is now known for custom mixing as part of her immersive performances and events, and singing live with a soundscape she created in and about The New York Hall of Science at the World Maker Faire. Her first soundscape and immersive story project “CrossCurrents” was created in the bilge of a sinking ship (many bilge compartments have incredible reverb, and they are the unsung heroes of ships, so she decided to very clearly sing their praises inside these too often forgotten spaces). Click here to read about CrossCurrents and see acknowledgements and sample attributions. Her latest soundscape- “Resounding NYSCI”- was created to celebrate the New York Hall of Science, The World’s Fair, Maker Faire, and the spirit of innovation. Come back later to see her portfolio, blog, and gallery that’s in development. Don’t forget to sign up on our mailing list to get invites to events like Ataraxia, and news about Rhiannon including her work with BELLA GAIA.