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Arts and Culture
Angela Davis and Gretchen Brown

Meet the Minneapolis sound designers crafting noise for movies, television and theater

Two people posing for a portrait
Katharine Horowitz (left), a theatrical sound designer, composer and teaching artist, and Tom Hambleton (right), a composer, sound designer and re-recording artist, in the Kling Public Media Center in St. Paul on Thursday.
Nikhil Kumaran | MPR

Go Deeper.

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MPR News host Angela Davis takes a peek behind the scenes of our favorite movies, television shows and live theater productions.

Sound design immerses us in a story. It can make us feel things.

Who could forget the whir of the light sabers in the “Star Wars” movies?

Or the swish and swirl of the water in “Finding Nemo” that made you feel like you were in the ocean with Nemo, Dory and Marlin?

Her guests are the creative masterminds behind sounds in movies and live productions. Some of which you might even recognize.

They’re both based in the Twin Cities.

Two women sitting in a broadcast studio
MPR News host Angela Davis (left) talks with Tom Hambleton (center), a composer, sound designer and re-recording artist, and Katharine Horowitz (right), a theatrical sound designer, composer and teaching artist, in an MPR News studio on Thursday.
Nikhil Kumaran | MPR News

Guests:  

  • Tom Hambleton is a composer, sound designer and re-recording artist. He opened his studio, Undertone Music, in 1994 and then moved to Minneapolis’s North Loop neighborhood in 1998. He’s worked on hundreds of productions including the 2013 movie Captain Phillips, the PBS TV series Nova, the 2023 animated short The Brave Locomotive, and countless corporate and museum projects. He is an active member of the Cinema Audio Society.

  • Katharine Horowitz is a theatrical sound designer, composer and teaching artist based in Minneapolis. She has designed shows for the Guthrie Theater, Children’s Theatre Company, The Jungle Theater, Theater Mu, History Theatre, Creede Repertory Theatre and Mixed Blood Theatre and many others. She is a 2017 McKnight Theatre Artist Fellow.

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.  

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.