Connecting with God Through Music — with Theresa Ambat
Season 3, Episode 1 | Originally aired on January 12, 2021
About the episode
"I'm doing music because this is the way that I feel so connected with the Lord."
At one point in her life, Theresa Ambat made up her mind to go into bioengineering. But when she didn't get accepted into the program, Theresa found herself diving deeper into a part of her life that she might have only considered as a hobby: music. By the grace of God, Theresa ended up changing her major and now spends a lot of time writing music and sharing it with others. For Theresa, music is more than fame or money: it's her way of connecting with God and bringing Him to others. In this episode, Theresa and I talk about how she got her start in music, the impact of her university's Newman Centre on her faith journey, and how a message from Mary helped her learn more about her feminine genius.
Listen to the episode
Meet Theresa Ambat
Theresa Ambat is a music producer and sound designer based in Seattle, Washington. She recently graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Computer Music where she learned about creating experimental soundscapes and music compositions using code. She was raised Catholic and served for several years as a student minister at her Catholic Newman Center in college. It was there that she discovered a deep passion for evangelization through art.
Theresa believes in sharing the beauty of Christ through all forms of music: singer-songwriter, 80s, R&B, chant, experimental, sound design, hip-hop, video-game music, and more. She believes that music that glorifies the Lord should be represented in all sorts of genres out of love for music's diversity. She recently developed an interest in producing chiptune and synthwave remixes of popular Catholic hymns. In 2019, Theresa released her first album "Midnight in the Chapel" which was indeed recorded at midnight in a chapel!
In 2020, she composed a 15-minute electroacoustic piece based on Bible passages related to "living water", composed a soundtrack for the short documentary "Clare McCallan: Little Victories" by Seraphim Media, and was also the sound designer for an episode of "The Quarantine Plays" by The Merry Beggars, a Catholic Theater organization based in New York. Theresa is also one half of the Seattle-based band SAPPHIRE CITY.
A few of Theresa's greatest musical inspirations are Ruby Ibarra, Jonathan Ogden, and Andrew Huang.