Mud Window Mud Mirror

Singer Naomi Columna and percussionist Katalin La Favre created their duo, Mud Window Mud Mirror, in 2022 and and felt an immediate artistic connection.  Column’s nuanced voice mixes with La Favre’s maverick touch on unusual instruments in projects spanning original compositions, to early music, to interdisciplinary collaborations.  

See our projects below!

Wanderings

experimentation in early music

Rooted in experimentation and a fondness for early music, percussionist Katalin La Favre and soprano Naomi Columna have arranged a set of Medieval and early Renaissance music for modern percussion and voice.  Looking at these works with contemporary eyes, the artists infuse this repertoire with unique timbres such as the marimba, drums, bells, and different nuances in the voice.  Weaving together different musical eras, you will also hear bursts of operatic drama, minimalist trances, among other unexpected sound worlds.  The playfulness with time is also represented by the division of the program into 4 seasons, signaled by the sounds of bells as well as 4 different versions of Guillaume de Machaut’s Puis qu’en oubli.   

Upcoming Performances

Heights Arts
Saturday, March 7, 2026 at 7 PM
Free admission. We recommend that you reserve your seat!

https://www.heightsarts.org/event/49203/

Past Performances

Brasswood Inn, ProvinceTown, September 20, 2025

Renaissance Retirement Community, November 18, 2025

Ben Franklin Community Garden, July 19, 2025

Trinity Cathedral, April 2, 2025

Mud Meditation
ceramic instruments and film

In 2021 I moved back to Ohio from France where I had been living for 9 years. Shortly after my relocation, I began to take a ceramics class, in a venture to create clay based musical instruments. To my surprise, this class was in many ways a mental refuge from the sense of great uncertainty I was feeling during this drastic life change. In an intersection between film and music, Mud Meditation features my ceramic instruments, but more importantly, is an ode to the creative process and the emotional landscape of an artist.  

The 50-minute work continuously moves from one musical soundscape to another representing the stages of ceramic making, like molding, firing, and washing bisque. The film, which is projected onto different areas of the stage during the performance, not only shows moments of the making process, but abstractly explores the inner feelings associated with these processes: peace, deep meditation, exploration, vulnerability, fear, anticipation, fragility...Using the intriguing sounds of these unique ceramic  instruments and evocative film of Naomi Columna, Mud Meditation is a portrait of an artist's inner world.  

The original version of this project (without film) was premiered at the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project Series in June 2024. This newest version of the project with film is possible thanks to the Avaloch Farm Institute, where we completed a residency in September 2025. The premier is anticipated for Spring 2027.

Details about upcoming performances coming soon!
Visit the blog to see the process of making these instruments.

-Katalin La Favre

A brief presentation of the instruments

This is a teaser from the first performance of the work at the CUSP series. This is the original version of the project without film.

Folktales

original compositions inspired by folktales

Mud Window Mud Mirror’s first collaborative project, these folksongs are a unique brew of pop, folk, early and contemporary music.  Column’s nuanced voice mixes with La Favre’s maverick touch on unusual instruments such as the hammered dulcimer and celtic harp in this musical odyssey wandering through soft drum beats, lyrical melodies, and folktales.

Recordings coming soon!

Past Performances

Ingenuity Festival: September, 2023
Maelstrom Collaborative Arts: January, 2024

Artist Biographies

  • Marimba

    Coming from a family of scientists, percussionist Katalin La Favre (b. 1988, she/her) is the first member of her family to pursue a musical career. Though she began her musical studies as a harpist, she decided to become a percussionist and obtained a bachelor's degree in classical percussion from the Colburn School in Los Angeles. In 2012 she was awarded a Fulbright Grant to study with contemporary percussionist Jean Geoffroy at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Lyon, France where she received a master's degree and artist diploma. She also received a degree in instrumental pedagogy from the CEFEDEM Auvergne Rhone-Alpes in 2018.

    Katalin remained in France for 9 years, where she became interested in interdisciplinary and non-traditional projects, working in collaboration for several innovative programs which have been performed in France, Germany, Scotland and Portugal. These programs have been vastly diverse, ranging from L’ombre des vagues (a program inspired by Virginia Woolf, combining contemporary music, contemporary dance, and poetry) to Zeee Match (a humoristic street theatre and music performance).

  • Voice

    Naomi Columna is a musician and artist focusing on new/experimental works and multidisciplinary collaborations. With a BM in Vocal Performance from the Cleveland institute of Music, (2016), and MM in Vocal Performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, (2019) Columna uses her western, classical training as a framework to reference, as well as a medium to manipulate. Columna is frequently featured in CUSP, the Cleveland Uncommon Sound Project, including debut performances of her own compositions, in ensemble Halumnen, a trio for Harp, Voice and Electronic Processing, as well as a guest performer for groups like the Jelly Ear ensemble, among other events. Through projects supported by SPACES Gallery and the Andy Warhol Foundation, as well as Maelstrom Collaborative Arts, Columna has also composed and directed original works/projects for multidisciplinary ensembles, such as DANCING_BANANAS.GIF, with directorial partner Melanie Emig, for live musicians and video, and Belong To You, for Prerecorded Ensemble, Video Installation, and Live Dancer. Later this year, Columna and partner, Katalin La Favre, Percussion, will be releasing their debut album, Mud Window Mud Mirror, for their newly founded duo of the same title, MWMM.