“A voice that lights up a room!”

- PATTERSON HORNWORKS

Katie Dukes Walker

Katie is a performer, educator, and entrepreneur whose innovative programming engages new audiences in creative and accessible ways. In addition to a performing career spanning many states and countries, her ten years of executive leadership in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors exemplify her commitment to arts leadership and community engagement.

entrepreneurship

Successful artists today embody four main characteristics: a portfolio career, a collaborative spirit, strong financial literacy, and an authentic ability to tell great stories. Katie exemplifies these values through her involvement in artistic entrepreneurship, performance and education.

  • Amity Trio’s mission is to advocate for new music, especially music from underrepresented voices.

    For the trio, Katie serves as community partner liaison, manages interns, marketing and promotional materials, grant writer, strategic planner, contract negotiator, financial planner, board of trustees collaborator, and manages and hires guest artists.

  • As arts communities, organizations and for- profit business shift, it has become evident that many of the old traditional ways of establishing a career in the arts are not only outdated, but obsolete. At the University of New Mexico’s Arts Leadership and Business program, Katie empowers students to develop career skills such as:

    • High-level writing ability

    • Learning to value art as service

    • Artistic authenticity

    • Celebration of interdisciplinary arts creation

    • Valuing cross-cultural exchange, advocacy, allyship and empathy

    • Financial savvy

  • In February 2022, Katie’s multifaceted work in performance, marketing, planning, and administration with the Amity Trio contributed to the release of a debut album for the group, “Between Us Now.” Plans for a new, 2023 album, featuring music from living composers on both sides of the Mexico/New Mexico border, are now underway.

education

In this ever-changing global artistic community, it is vital to give students not only the skills required to obtain high level artistic achievement and fulfillment within their careers, but also financial stability. Simply put, Katie’s mission as an educator is to inspire students to embrace self-learning and achieve total artistic empowerment.

  • As a founding member of Amity Trio, Katie regularly engages students of all ages with creative programming, recordings, and multimedia projects. Click here to read about recent trio projects.

  • In 2021, Katie, along with the Amity Trio, launched a premiere of Nur Slim’s bilingual children’s opera, Lucrecia y el Canto de los Dudasaurios. Plans are underway for a virtual multimedia production of this opera in 2023. Click here to learn more about this project & its impact!

  • At the University of New Mexico’s Arts Leadership and Business program, Katie’s courses empower students to take charge of a sustainable, fulfilling arts career:

    Financial Management in the Arts

    This course aims to de-mystify the elements of basic financial management and familiarize students with the concepts and practices of sound financial management and decision-making for the arts and cultural industries.

    Business Planning for the Arts

    Provides emerging arts professionals with the knowledge base and strategies to develop stronger arts businesses. The course culminates with students developing an arts business plan.

    Arts Leadership + Business Internship

    The ALBS internship is required for all students who are completing their ALBS undergraduate or graduate minor. The purpose of the internship is to provide students in their junior or senior year with a capstone to their ALBS studies and an entry point for their professional arts career. The internship is a professional experience in which the student is asked what specific skill sets they would like to focus on during their internship and are matched with an organization seeking similar skills. On-site and/remotely/or hybrid, interns will work under the supervision of a designated mentor within the organization. While working on tasks assigned, interns should seek to make connections between knowledge gained from prior ALBS courses and the reality of the work experience. Self-reflection and self-evaluation assignments are a significant part of the internship experience. In all internships, students are held to a high standard of professional conduct and work ethic.

    Non-Profit Arts Administration

    Non-Profit Arts Administration is designed to prepare students to be successful arts administrators in a competitive industry. Students will analyze and apply planning principles of management to select case studies in the arts, and will consider what it takes to create and promote value for a successful non-profit arts organization. Student work will culminate by developing a strategic plan for a small arts non-profit organization. Course activities will have any combination of lectures, readings, videos, discussion forums, quizzes, assignments, and presentations.

People say

“Katie is a package deal - a thoughtful and passionate music educator, a talented and equally passionate vocal performer, and a supremely organized arts business leader with a can-do attitude! “

- Julia Church Hoffman (she/her)

Principal Lecturer II, UNM Department of Music; Director, UNM Music Prep School 

“Soprano Katie Dukes has a unique voice. Communicating with her audience is her greatest gift: she loves to sing and she shows it!"

-Erie Mills, soprano

Artistic Director, Livermore Valley Opera

"Katie Dukes has a warm operatic voice that lights up a room! An inspiration to her musical collaborators, Amity Trio and beyond."

-Cora and Jim Patterson
Patterson Hornworks