Katy Jarzebowski’s FEATHERS Is a Whimsical Soundtrack for Your Inner Child

Let’s get one thing straight: FEATHERS is not your average ballet score—or your average anything, really. Composer Katy Jarzebowski takes the music she wrote for a 2021 ballet (The Thing with Feathers, co-created with choreographer Emily Adams) and reimagines it as a boundary-blurring album that feels like a fairy tale told entirely in sound. It’s magical, a little mischievous, and totally unlike anything else out there.

Jarzebowski’s background is wild in the best way—she’s a classically trained composer who’s equally at home scoring documentaries (The Fire That Took Her, In the Dark of the Valley), collaborating with ballet companies, and working on massive film projects (including an upcoming one involving Terrence Malick and Nick Offerman—casual). With FEATHERS, she sets all of that aside and dives headfirst into pure sonic play.

The result? A 35-minute sound adventure filled with fluttering flutes, grumpy low brass, sneaky bird sounds, thunderclaps, and even an accordion exhale that sounds like a sleeping dragon. It’s cinematic, surreal, and totally transportive—like stumbling into a dreamworld where everything is made of music and memory.

Standout moments include the buzzing, swirling “FLOCKS,” the ominous stomp of “BEAKS,” and the delicate, glowy finale “STORIES,” which feels like someone whispering you back to life after a nap in the clouds. Everything is recorded at super high resolution (hello, 96kHz!) and mixed to perfection by the audio wizards at Skywalker Sound, so you hear every tiny detail—like glass tapping and strings that sound like fireflies.

Jarzebowski calls it an ode to “the dormant eight-year-old inside every adult,” and honestly, that’s spot on. FEATHERS doesn’t just invite you to listen—it dares you to imagine. To believe that a bunch of instruments and found sounds can become something bigger. Something weirder. Something a little braver.

If you like your classical music with a side of wonder and a splash of the unexpected, this one’s for you.

Listen to FEATHERS on Spotify here.

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