Bio:

Tauheedah “Tate” Abdullah is sound designer, sound artist, storyteller, and composer who works in plays, musicals, and experimental sound works primarily. Their work has included devised performances, installations, new plays, and sound walks. Tate began work in theatre starting as an audio technician and mixer. This has led them to expand into engineering and systems and eventually more spatial audio. Immersive sound design has become a larger focus in their design and artistic work. 

In 2022, Tate Abdullah was awarded as one of the Cody Renard Richard Scholars and also won the Judy Dearing Student Design Award in Sound Design that year as part of Black Theatre Network. They also had the opportunity to be a part of OISTAT Romania’s International Program in Scenography in September 2023. 

Tate’s works range from whimsical pieces of wonder to darker, highly textured pieces that fill and move a space. Most of their work involves electronics and synthesizers, with experimentation in incorporating acoustic instruments, mostly percussion. They are an artist that seeks to grow and expand on their musicality and find new ways to tell stories. In their time at Carnegie Mellon, they’ve had the wonderful opportunity to work on multiple new works: A Hit Dog Will Holler, This Old Haunt, and The Mourners. Within the city of Pittsburgh, they’ve designed with City Theatre Company on What The Constitution Means To Me and Young Playwright’s Festival 2023. Tate also created an installation, Bog Bounce, with media designer Kolton Cotton at The Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh for the 2023 Tough Artist Residency. 

As they begin in their career, Tate hopes to continue to branch into more forms of experimental performance, installation, theatre, and more immersive projects in live performance and also film/animation. They seek to grow within sound design to work within a community and benefit a greater audience to tell meaningful stories and dive deeper into imagination.