ABOUT
Katya Mihailova is a composer for film and media based in New York City. She is a British Academy Television Craft Awards (BAFTA) 2018 Original Score Nominee, 2023 Cinema Eye Original score Nominee and a Film Composer Fellow at the Sundance Institute.
Katya composed original scores and contributed her works to a number of documentaries, TV series, narrative films and shorts. Notably: “Born Free”, a British-Russian documentary produced by twice-Oscar-nominated producer, Mike Lerner, for Channel 4 in Britain; “Russian Woodpecker”, a documentary by Chad Gracia that earned the Grand Jury prize at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival; a Libyan-British documentary "Freedom Fields” (2018) that premiered at Toronto International Film Festival; a Peruvian narrative feature film “The Restoration” (2019) that premiered and got acquired at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in January 2020 as well as a feature documentaries by Shalini Kantayya “Coded Bias” and “TikTok Boom” premiered in the US Documentary competition at Sundance Film Festival 2020 and 2022; “Joonam”(2023) by Sierra Urich— and many others.
Katya’s recent notable projects include a score for a 2023 Emmy-winning “The Territory” produced by National Geographic and streamed on Disney+. This score was created partially by using field recordings of environment, nature and indigenous folklore and that Katya collected in Rondônia and Amazonia while in Brazil. Katya also worked with the local musical Tatuyo community of to record at the Manaus Opera House, the most iconic musical place in the Amazon.
Coming from a background of classical piano and chamber music, Katya’s compositions ranges from solo piano to experimental electronic, from orchestral to folk, intuitively interacting with the visual element, and at times, contributing a necessary ingredient to storytelling.
Photo by AM Media Group
Katya is originally from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. In 2017, her musical score to “Song for the Nomad” directed and filmed by Ben Sturgulewski in Kyrgyzstan for DPS Cinematic won BEST SOUND at Kendal Mountain Film Festival. She has recently scored a National Geographic documentary “My dear Kyrgyzstan” directed by Noam Argov and Alex Pritz.
She holds Masters Degree from the Manhattan School of Music in piano performance. After taking a course in Music Technology at the Juilliard, Katya was chosen to become a composer fellow at the Sundance Music and Sound Design Lab 2016 at Skywalker Ranch under top industry composers Oswaldo Golijov and George S. Clinton.
Katya’s in-production projects include, “Sex in Soviet Union” a feature film by Chad Gracia, “Contamination”(2024) a documentary by Ariel Ritchin and “Love and Tech” (2025) by Shalini Kantayya.
OFFICIAL AFFILIATIONS
Society of Composers and Lyricists
Alliance for Women Film Composers
Sundance Music Institute, Fellow
New York Women in Film & Television
"Since an early age, I had an unrelenting case of synesthesia and a true love for cinematography and storytelling. My most meaningful musical inspiration comes from the narrative genre and visual atmosphere. Exploring non-traditional instruments like a mouth harp or a thumb piano, interweaving sound design elements with traditional string sounds, using “prepared piano” to sound like a percussion section of the orchestra — are just a few examples of musical explorations that stroke my curiosity and creativity as an artist."
