
Carla Patullo Howls and Heals on Grammy-Nominated Ambient Album On So She Howls, the film composer, songwriter, and alum guides listeners through a cycle of healing that chronicles her experience with a life-threatening illness.
By
Bryan Parys
January 18, 2024
Image courtesy of Carla Patullo
When composer and songwriter Carla Patullo B.M. '01, M.M. '13 was young, her grandmother often sang to her. With that singing came a reminder of the cycles of life, of what it gives, takes, and returns to us. She used to tell me, Record this [singing] on a little tape recorder, because when I pass, I want you to have this so you can listen to me and remember me,' Patullo said.
The image of the tape ribbon, winding and rewinding itself around its spool, is a powerful one, and not just because of how it preserved her grandmother's voice. The memory of those tapes would help Patullo rediscover her own voice as she fought through a nearly three-year cancer battle, emerging with So She Howls, which earned a 2024 Grammy nomination for Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album.
In the early stages of treatment, Patullos primary focus was survival, with all the ups and downs that entailed-she wasn't thinking about her career or her art at all. As the months went on, however, she found herself needing to vocalize. Its funny how music circles back, she said. I began howling. I call it that because I didnt have any lyrics, and I had no motivation to write lyrics in the beginning. So, I just started like, you know, singing.
During her treatment and recovery, this singing served a primal, deeply personal need. But at some point, she remembered her grandmother's lessons, and thought, I should really just go and press record.
I hope that people can feel . . . me finding my voice again.
- Carla Patullo B.M. 01, M.M. 13
These were the first breaths of what would become So She Howls, an ambient collection of nine songs that feature those original vocal recordings, alongside contributions from the Scorchio Quartet, vocal ensemble Tonality, and violinist Lili Haydn. The album's instrumentation is rich in swelling synth textures and warm string arrangements, while the vocals soar and haunt, calling to mind the more cinematic side of Sigur R s. And much like that Icelandic band's early albums, where vocals eschew the use of lyrics, So She Howls is largely wordless. The first discernible lyrics dont emerge until track six.
That pacing was a conscious choice. She wanted the album's narrative to reflect the experience of finding herself through healing. The last track on the album does have lyrics, and I think thats because I finally got to this place where I could sing and articulate more what Im saying. she said. So I hope that people can feel . . . me finding my voice again.
More Than One Way to Tell a StoryThe way the narrative is felt rather than told speaks to Patullo's skill as a songwriter as well as a film and TV composer. As an undergraduate at Berklee, she studied songwriting, and 12 years later she returned to study film, TV, and video game scoring at Berklee's campus in Valencia, Spain. Now an award-winning composer, she's worked on a range of documentaries, feature films, and shorts that often align with her passion for supporting women, immigrants, and the LGBTQ+ community. Most recently, her work can be heard in Maxine, a short film from Disney+ starring Margaret Cho.
Each discipline has helped her build a sustainable career both as a multimedia composer and a solo artist, and she views storytelling as the thread that weaves together her dual interests. But while writing her own songs had always come naturally, composing for other collaborators was an interest she first discovered while working with the comedian and musician Sandra Bernhard. Working with her was interesting because it was the first time for me to take someone elses story and see it from a different perspective, Patullo said. That led me to film scoring, because all of a sudden I was just so receptive to these other stories and not just writing about my own personal story.
She enrolled at Berklee Valencia to help her gain the skills she felt she was missing. By the time I got to Berklee Valencia, I felt like an underdog in the class, because I didnt have some of those film scoring skills that some of my classically trained classmates had, she said. But it was so fun. And Ive been loving orchestrating and getting into this cinematic sound, which I really found to be something that resonates deeply with me. Her professor, Laura Karpman, who recently scored the feature film The Marvels, helped her land her first scoring job in Los Angeles, where Patullo now resides and runs her own in-home studio.
Balancing the Professional and the PersonalOne way that Patullo balances her musical passions is to try to give herself at least an hour a day to work on her own art. But as she points out, both practices feed and nourish the other. Her songwriting gives her composition work a more defined sense of voice, and the scoring provides her personal work a wider sonic palette-something that is very much on display on So She Howls.
Patullo's life and career is full of this looping back to help her move forward. She hopes that by sharing her journey, even through howling, people will feel less alone-especially if they're experiencing the isolation that a difficult period can bring.
We go through these cycles of healing, and we go back and we remember things, and then we close down, and then we open up, and its like this circle, she said. And I hope the album from start to finish can help guide people on that.
Related Categories
News
Most Popular
15 of the Best Cover Songs (and Why They Work) From Fast Car to Ring of Fire, there's no formula to making a
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
21/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission by a 3-0 vote adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to advance Congress's mandate to clear a minim...
21/11/2025
STAMFORD, Conn. Charter's Spectrum has expanded the devices that can offer 4K content on the Spectrum TV app to compatible Apple TV 4K and Roku devices....
21/11/2025
NAPERVILLE, Ill. Media industry employers are continuing their multiyear trend of increasing salaries for all worker segments but lag general industry raises, s...
21/11/2025
WASHINGTON The National Association of Broadcasters said it is accepting nominations for the 2026 NAB Technology Awards, honors that recognize excellence in bro...
21/11/2025
American Amplifier Technologies has released a vector network analysis module....
21/11/2025
The Best Movie Musicals on Every Streaming Platform From Wicked to The Sound of Music, heres where to stream all the classic movie musicals and recent hits on...
20/11/2025
MLB Media-Rights Shakeup: NBC's New Three-Year Deal Covers Sunday Night Bas...
20/11/2025
MLB Media-Rights Shakeup: New Deal Will Bring 30 National Games to ESPN's Li...
20/11/2025
MLB Media-Rights Shakeup: Netflix Lands Opening Night, Home Run Derby, Field of ...
20/11/2025
MLB Media-Rights Shakeup Overview: ESPN, NBCU, Netflix Ink Three-Year DealsESPN gets new 30-game package, MLB.TV; NBC extends Sunday nights; Netflix adds tentpo...
20/11/2025
SVG Students To Watch: Henry Thuss, Indiana UniversityThe Southern California product has his goals set on the front benchBy Brandon Costa, Director of Digital ...
20/11/2025
Done+Dusted's Guy Carrington on Creating the Spectacular League of Legends W...
20/11/2025
FIA Extreme H World Cup Host Broadcaster Aurora Goes Inside the Production of th...
20/11/2025
Platinum White Paper: Amagi Utilizes Cloud Production for Sports Events - Multi-...
20/11/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Marc Herklotz, Steady Hand Behind the Sce...
20/11/2025
NFL Deep Dive: How 32 Cameras at Each Stadium Drive Virtual Measurement, Boundar...
20/11/2025
Charlie Shackleton attends the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Zodiac K...
20/11/2025
Your playlists are personal. They're the soundtracks to your road trips, your quiet mornings, and your biggest celebrations; collections of memories and dis...
20/11/2025
Spotify, uzun s redir zerine al t T rk m zik k lt r n n ikon haline gelmi ...
20/11/2025
For the first time, Spotify has teamed up with The Hollywood Reporter to cohost ...
20/11/2025
This year's ARIA Awards marked a turning point for Australian music, and Spotify was right at the heart of it. For the first time in the awards' nearly ...
20/11/2025
L3Harris has achieved NSA Cybersecurity Directorate certification for its KSV-650 space hub end cryptographic unit, ensuring secure, adaptable communications fo...
20/11/2025
L3Harris is strengthening its long-term partnership with Poland through the opening of a new facility in Warsaw to serve as a central business hub for regional ...
20/11/2025
15 March 2012
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Cinegy and Vericom are pleased to announce the recent deployment of Cinegy Archive for production and as...
20/11/2025
6 September 2012
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
FIC Turkey supplies media content to Pay TV under Fox TV Channel brands in Turkey.
At the start of s...
20/11/2025
25 June 2014
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Last month VIVA finalized its Cinegy installation in order to produce and broadcast the World Cup Brazil ...
20/11/2025
1 October 2014
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
With 5 locations spread out around Baden-W rttemberg, Schw bisch Media required a scalable end to end s...
20/11/2025
27 April 2015
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Cinegy, which develops and produces media asset management products that are used in flagship production...
20/11/2025
12 August 2015
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 26 October 2015 - Cinegy, which develops and produces software technology for digital ...
20/11/2025
5 November 2015
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany 3 November 2015 - Cinegy, which develops and produces software technology for digital ...
20/11/2025
12 February 2016
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany 9 February 2016 - Cinegy, which develops and produces software technology for digital...
20/11/2025
22 June 2016
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany 21 June 2016 - Cinegy today announced that ABS BROADCAST, one of the largest independentl...
20/11/2025
10 January 2017
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Find us on page 12 of the Program Guide 2016
Tags
NewBay Media Awards , Program Guide 2016 , broadc...
20/11/2025
15 March 2017
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany 15 March 2017 - Cinegy today announced that Thailand's Next Step direct-to-home Free...
20/11/2025
12 December 2017
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany 13 December 2017 - Cinegy today announced that it is making its Cinegy Air Cloud Pack...
20/11/2025
25 June 2018
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich 25th June 2018 - Cinegy today announced that Canada-based Accessible Media Inc. (AMI) has implemen...
20/11/2025
27 May 2019
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
The best quality live video from the worst networks - Haivision
Although DVB and the World Wide Web are...
20/11/2025
24 November 2020
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
ATV Expand and Increase their Playout and Editing Capabilities using Cinegy Software
Munich, Germany...
20/11/2025
1 September 2021
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st September 2021:
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for di...
20/11/2025
20 September 2021
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
ElectronicVerve continues a strong history of supporting Cinegy customers in India
Munich, Germany,...
20/11/2025
1 November 2022
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 01 November 2022: Cinegy, a premier provider of software technology for digital video...
20/11/2025
31 October 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Britt Broadcast at TBC...
20/11/2025
CINCINNATI Oklahoma Community Television (OCT) has selected GatesAir and Triveni Digital as key technology partners in an ATSC 3.0 deployment that establishes a...
20/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has opened a wide-ranging inquiry into the relations between broadcast networks and their affiliates that could...
20/11/2025
NEW YORK Ad spend in the creator economy has more than doubled since 2021 from $13.9B to $29.5B in 2024 and that amount is projected to reach $37 billion in 202...
20/11/2025
Graduate Spotlight: Krysta Mirsik DePuy The educator from Hackettstown, New Jersey, shares how it took her 11 years to find the right graduate program for her...
20/11/2025
LONDON The winners of the Rise Awards 2025, which recognize women and companies whose achievements have stood out in the media technology industry, have been an...
20/11/2025
SANTA MONICA & NEW YORK Lionsgate's Worldwide Television Distribution Group and Debmar-Mercury have launched MovieSphere Gold in more than 30 million homes....
20/11/2025
ALAMEDA, Calif. Clear-Com has introduced its four-channel HelixNet beltpack, a next-generation advancement of its widely used two-channel model, and anticipates...