Kristin McGarity

Visit my new site:

SongInvention


Kristi McGarity produces custom music to celebrate special people and commemorate events, freelances as an audio engineer, and volunteers in healthcare advocacy.

Previously McGarity founded the Music Technology degree program at Montana State University, building a new major for aspiring composers and sound engineers. She was the winner of the 2010 MSU Provost's Award for Undergraduate Research and Creativity Mentoring and a 2011 Faculty Award for Excellence. She earned a degree in oboe performance from the University of Michigan and a Master of Music degree in composition from the University of Texas, where she also earned a DMA in Music Composition in 2009.

In addition to her work at UT, she has taught electronic music at Austin Community College and oboe at Armstrong Community Music School. Her background in acoustic and electronic media includes theatrical composition and sound design, songwriting and production, film scoring, and collaborative works for film/video and dance.

As an academic composer, McGarity produces genre-crossing audio art exploring voices of real people: children living in shelters, laid-off financial workers, her grandfather's sermons from his small Texas church, science fiction author Octavia Butler, and many more. Long before that, she made happy synthpop under the name Opposite Day.

Now back in Texas with her husband and son, she is launching a new business setting real-life stories to music. More coming soon at SongInvention.

Photo by Kelly Gorham, Montana State University