Katie Benoy experiences New York City music biz

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Katie Benoy, left, shows her twin sister, Sara, and mother, Kim, right, around New York City. They’re on Ellis Island.

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Hudson native Katie Benoy got a taste of what the music business is like during a five-month internship in New York City.

And she liked it.

“New York is a great city. I absolutely fell in love with it,” she said. “It’s hard to pick just one experience, but probably going to the Bowery Ballroom to see one of the artists perform was the best. It was a great time and one concert I will never forget.”

Benoy, a 2008 Hudson High School graduate, is a music business student at the McNally Smith College of Music in St. Paul.

She went to New York for the second semester of 2009, doing artist tour marketing for Rykodisc, an independent record company within Warner Bros. Records.

Benoy was responsible for tracking tours of the musicians Rykodisc represents and keeping venues informed of developments. She sent out posters and press materials and updated tour documents.

“This was one of the best opportunities I could have received,” Benoy said. “It allowed me to really get into it and work hard. I got firsthand experience and made a lot of connections while I was there.”

“I also got the opportunity to go to the shows that were in New York City, which was a blast,” she added.

Benoy says she was a “band geek” at Hudson High. She played trumpet, mellophone, French horn and guitar – and sang soprano in choir.

She will complete her two-year program at McNally Smith in August.

She’s hoping to find work as a booking agent at a venue such as the Dakota Jazz Club in Minneapolis, where she also served an internship.

Rykodisc has offered her a permanent job, she said, but she’s not sure it would pay enough for her to live in New York City.

She shared an apartment in Brooklyn with two other students during internship with Rykodisc. The apartment was a 40-minute subway ride away from Rockefeller Plaza, and her share of the rent was $800.

Benoy continues to make her own music, too. She said she wrote a bunch of songs while she was out East and hopes to record a solo acoustic album of them named “Brooklyn.”

Her parents are Kim and Dave Benoy.

Her mother is a nurse at Hudson Hospital and her dad is a mechanic foreman for Xcel Energy in Minneapolis.

Her twin sister, Sara, is also musically inclined.

Tags: college, education, arts