Indie, pop, folk, and rock is the singer-songwriter’s style

Amidst all the shopping and eating there is a small get away in the middle of the courtyard of One Colorado. In the small stage across Crate & Barrel and Al Fornaio restaurant stood an upbeat freelance musician by the name of Theo Katzman, covering a wide variety of music from pop to indie to folk and rock on Saturday night.

Katzman, who is from Brooklyn, described his music as lyrical with influences from a variety of music genres.

“I would describe [my music] as songs that have lyrics as oppose to instrumental music. There are songs in the sort of rock maybe a little pop round 70s influence, folk-rock influence, that’s where I am kind of coming from,” Katzman said. “But lyrics are really important to me, so I tend to think of lyric-focus song craft.”

Katzman said he writes his music through emotional experience.

“I tend to write songs that come from my own experience, emotional experience or mental experience, so feelings that I have,” Katzman said.

Katzman is also in the band Vulfpeck. They are a funk group based from Michigan and Katzman plays the guitar and drums for them.

“It’s tough to switch hat sometimes,” Katzman said. “It’s a different side of the brain to be the band leader and then to be the drummer.”

Two audience members, Adam Zanoff and Matthew Drake, who are musician students from California State University Northridge, are fans of Vulfpeck and they wanted to hear Katzman as a solo act.

“It was cool to see his solo project and have him out front playing the lead,” Zanoff said. “For a free show randomly on a Saturday it was awesome and it was a great show definitely.”

“I thought it was really great especially after seeing Vulfpeck,” Drake said. “We only found out about this show yesterday.”

There was a wide variety of people in the audience, young and old. Katzman’s performance created a vibrant feel in One Colorado.

“I saw some 5-year-olds dancing out front and elder couples dancing in the back,” said Mary Smith, another audience member.

Actress Sherri Saum, known for her role as Lena Adams Foster from the ABC Family drama series “The Fosters,” was also seen enjoying Katzman’s music with her husband and twin children.

Katzman also worked with Darren Criss, who is a fellow singer-songwriter famous for his role in Fox’s musical comedy drama series “Glee.” He worked with Criss on one of his albums and he was the musical director for his first tour, as well as the drummer for his band on tour.

“It was an exhilarating, pretty crazy ride, because [Darren] is a famous guy at the top of his game,” Katzman said.

Katzman performed for 70 minutes with a straight set playing old and new songs such as “I Feel Love (All The Time),” “Country Backroads,” “Every Few Days,” “Pop Song,” and “Brooklyn.”

He has a new album coming up in a few months.

“The songwriting is the best I’ve done yet [with this album]. I’m proud of it. I think it’s really good,” Katzman said. “It’s a very evolved span of stuff.”