CHRIS SOHRE is an American-born composer, engineer, producer & multi-instrumentalist, residing part-time near Seattle in the US and the Languedoc region in Southern France. Chris has collaborated with a variety of artists ranging from alternative bands in London and Dublin to jazz ensembles in Toronto and Amsterdam to world musicians in Greece and eclectic folk musicians in Australia and New Zealand.

She focuses on releasing her own travelogue type music while also working on location as audio engineer. As a freelancer, she produced programs for Dutch public radio from 2000 through 2004 and currently uses her studio as a post production facility. Sohre is active as both composer and publisher for ASCAP.

Her latest project, The Night Between was recorded in Amsterdam, London and Seattle area and released in October 2007. This CD includes notable artists such as Michael Manring (Bassist of the Year award from the readers of Bass Player magazine, Grammy and Bammie nominations, two gold records) and Michael Moore on alto saxophone and clarinets (awarded the Boy Edgar Prijs, a prestigious jazz award in the Netherlands).

In a live broadcast on ET3 Television (Europe) Chris was showcased as upcoming new artist while promoting her second CD, Makria, featuring several popular Greek musicians as well as British (including Jim McCarty, founding member and drummer of the Yardbirds).

On another CD project of hers, Who Will Know, Sohre incorporates the talents of her fellow Northwest US artists, such as Stephen Kent on didgeridoo (Trance Mission), Amy Denio on accordion (The Tiptons Sax Quartet) and Jami Sieber on electric cello (Ferron).

She was the only female in an intensive study of sound engineering at the Music Source in Seattle, WA from 1992-94, but this only pushed her determination to succeed in a profession mainly dominated by men.

From 1986-87 Chris lived in London, UK, studying the methods of Zoltán Kodály while becoming involved with two alternative folk/rock bands as lead vocalist. At this time she began travelling regularly, both solo and as collaborator in various bands.

Her very first recording was self-produced and released on cassette in 1984, titled Fleeting Echoes... This name was subsequently used as her publishing label (Fleeting Echoes Ltd) and also continues to serve as her production studio.

Sohre received her Bachelor of Music performance degree from Silver Lake College in Manitowoc, Wisconsin with study in the methodology of solfège; under the guidance of Dr Lorna Zemke, an internationally-known Kodály instructor. Chris attended this college for only one year but it was packed with valuable learning experiences - including a visit to see Katinka Scipiades Daniel, one of the most influential Hungarian-Americans who directed and influenced the entire adaptation of the Kodály Method and its progress in the U.S.

Upon completion of her studies, Chris spent her internship teaching contemporary guitar classes and composing original material for ensemble work at Lane Community College in Eugene, Oregon.

The majority of Sohre's academic experience came via the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, with a year of independent study abroad. She organized her own program (Philosophy of European Contemporary Jazz) weaving music, photography and philosophy as the foundation for her dissertation. This pioneering independent travel project for the university took her around the continent in 1979-80, recording live gigs and interviewing musicians such as Jan Garbarek, Miroslav Vitouš, Betty Carter, Eberhard Weber, Kenny Kirkland and Jon Christensen.

When only 10 years old, Chris formed an all-girl band and played the vinyl grooves out of her and her brother’s 45’s, often preferring the B-side of the hits released by British bands and American folk artists. About two years later, her father (who played folk/blues on a chromatic harmonica) and grandfather (Chris’ mentor) died suddenly, and only a few months apart. This spurred Chris to start writing songs, simple as they were. She then became active in school chorus and band, where she was placed in the first chair position with the Bb clarinet from age 14 on.

To back up even further, it all began around age 8 when Chris began playing music on an electric guitar, complete with whammy bar. Unfortunately, her strong natural impulse to play left-handed did not garner parental support for a special guitar, nor was her left-handedness (a traditional sign of satanic influence) acceptable to the nuns at her local Catholic school, who, in the process of teaching penmanship found reason to swat the offending hand with wooden rulers. Her continued refusal to oblige the right-handed prejudice resulted in frequent banishment to the institution’s metaphorical “hell” – the dimly lit boiler room of St George primary school in the north mid-west of America.

This, no doubt, was the beginning of the lifelong question on death, god and the meaning of life…