Carrie Biolo - Department of Music

Carrie Biolo is an established performer of contemporary music, working closely with composers such as Guillermo Gregorio, Amnon Wolman, Jeff Kowalkowski, and Michael Pisaro. Pisaro, who is on the composition faculty at CalArts, has written numerous works for Biolo, including a seven day interdisciplinary performance piece, Sound Light Sand. Biolo performed in the Chicago Latino Music Festival in 2009 with the Madi Ensemble premiering new works by Barilari and Gregorio.  In 2007, she was a featured soloist in Russell Peck’s The Glory and Grandeur, Concerto for Three Percussionists and Orchestra, with the Marquette Symphony Orchestra. She holds a Master of Music degree in Percussion Performance from DePaul University in Chicago, IL.

As a member of Art Lange’s contemporary music ensemble, Biolo can be heard on the world premiere complete recording of Cornelius Cardew’s Treatise. Other recordings include Cardew’s Material, Anthony Braxton’s Compositions No. 10 & No. 16(+101), and Guillermo Gregorio’s Faktura. Biolo has recorded over 20 CDs on various labels including hat[now]Art, Rhino, CRI and others.  Her music compositions can be heard on Ira Glass’ This American Life and have been featured on WGBH Boston Public Radio’s Art of the States.

Biolo performed with Guillermo Gregorio and ensemble Aural at the Let’s Cool One Chamber Jazz Festival at the Viener Musik Galerie in Vienna, Austria, and as a featured soloist with Ensemble Aktive Musik in Essen and Witten, Germany. She has appeared in chamber, solo, and orchestral concerts at numerous venues in Germany, Japan and Taiwan and has toured extensively throughout the United States.

With long time collaborator Jeff Kowalkowski, Biolo co-founded the critically acclaimed duo Jack the Dog in 1995, which is devoted to the performance of experimental music.  Kowalkowski has composed over fifty works for Biolo. Gradually the process of composition and performance has become more collaborative—Biolo composing and Kowalkowski performing. Jack the Dog audio collection includes Missa Canibus, ah. it’s like your talking in your head and you just can’t, and Scan 12. Jack the Dog recently performed at Heaven Gallery in Chicago and at the 20th Anniversary of the Rhinoceros Theatre Festival.

In 2010 Biolo premiered Resolute Dot Dot Cloud, a duo concerto for timpani, percussion and orchestra, with the Marquette Symphony Orchestra.  This concerto was specifically composed for Biolo and her husband, James A. Strain, by Jeffrey Kowalkowski.  

Biolo is the founder and artisitc director of a week long intensive percussion camp – Percussive Attack Camp (PAC).  Now in it's 8th year, PAC was featured in the City of Marquette's First Halloween Spectacle and performed at Lakenland.

In addition to her contemporary music collaborations, recordings and performance projects, Carrie maintains a private percussion teaching studio, directs Percussive Attack Camp and has been a percussionist with the Marquette Symphony Orchestra since her return to Marquette in 2001.