Wiktoria expressed an interest in music and performing art from a very young age. For over ten years she was a ballerina, but was too shy to sing. As such, her very first singing performance took place relatively late, at the age of 16, relying on instinct. From this point, her dream turned to becoming a Musical Theatre actress, however at every single competition that she entered, she was asked whether she was classically trained.

At first she hated it! It felt like an insult. Opera seemed grim, boring and out of her interest. Her operatic journey began through pure chance, spontaneously taking entry exams at the Academy of Music, as an attempt to get her family to "stop moaning about the opera," and prove that she truly had no aptitude for it, and should go towards musical theatre or dramatic acting as she intended.

Fate, it seemed, had a sense of humour, as not only did Wiktoria pass those exams, but now works full time as an opera singer and absolutely loves it!

When not performing, Wikki crochets, paints, reads, and creates her own jewellery.

Favourite moment on The Light Inside EP: "My favourite part is in Eden, and isn’t even one of the lines I wrote! It’s the vocalisation at the end, it’s entirely mine, right from the bottom of my rotten heart."

Berkeley-educated guitarist Chris has always musically had a foot in both worlds, as it were. They claim their mother is to blame, a classically trained musician who’s just as happy playing Mozart flute concertos as busting out Brian Boru’s March on her tin whistle, but also the woman who raised them on a strict diet of Iron Maiden, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd.

Ever since first learning music, and then immediately attempting to rearrange their favourite Metallica songs for fiddles and flutes, Chris has always felt at home learning and incorporating all of these different styles of music, and has never seen any reason they should be apart. One of the founding goals of Catalyst Symphony was to bridge all these worlds, and they couldn’t be happier to see how beautifully that’s come to fruition!

Their life outside of music (insofar as they have one…) is a mishmash of tabletop RPG GMing (Pathfinder 2e and Lancer!), fighting with spreadsheets, and running writing workshops for LGBT and neurodiverse youth.

Favourite moment on The Light Inside EP: "I always love playing the ending of Salvation, the way everyone just gets to let loose and go crazy with it! The drum solo, the mad piano stabs, the walking bass fills, it’s always such a blast."

Tamara's first album was the Trve Kvlt classic debut album by the Spice Girls. Perhaps not very metal, but everyone's musical journey has to start somewhere. Fast forward to the year 2003, when the UK was gripped by Darkness-mania, and Tamara would be converted to a rock fan, spending many an hour playing Empire Earth on the family PC whilst rocking out to The Darkness’ Permission to Land and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Greatest Hits.

Then one fateful day Kerrang TV introduced her to Iron Maiden performing their classic song Run to the Hills. One very quick trip to buy their Greatest Hits album later, Maiden became firmly cemented as her favourite band (a position they still hold to this day). She would go on to discover the likes of Metallica, Megadeth and Saxon, before eventually becoming a fan of nearly every form of metal there is.

In 2004 Tamara saved up to buy her first guitar; a budget B.C. Rich Mockingbird with a three-headed fire-breathing dragon on it. Metal. She taught herself how to play without receiving any form of musical tuition. In 2014 she finally joined a band, and playing gigs fast became her absolute favourite thing to do. In 2023 she added bass to her repertoire, and took to it like a duck to water, joining Catalyst Symphony a few weeks after getting her first bass!

Outside of music, she works as a molecular biologist and received a PhD at just 24 years old (get her!) She's also massively into retro video games, and has amassed a sizable collection of old consoles, computers and gameswith some of the most prized including a Magnavox Odyssey (the first ever games console from 1972) and a copy of Doom on the Sega 32X signed by the game's creator, John Romero. She also runs a retro gaming Youtube channel (youtube.com/tamaracade), and been a panelist on talks given at the UK’s largest retro games convention Play Expo in Blackpool. She also does stand-up comedy in and around Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee.

Favourite moment on The Light Inside EP: "My favourite part is the heavy bit in the middle of Eden. It’s so much fun to do live as it always brings so much energy and I love jumping around to it on stage."