Biography
Pronouns: they/she
Recently awarded a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University, Kate will be conducting a project called, “Teaching my Story in my Voice: Using songwriting and recording with refugee children to develop culturally relevant resources for Ontario service providers and educators.” This project examines how songwriting, recording, and performance provide opportunities for refugee children to experience personal empowerment and express musical agency by composing and recording their stories in song. Then, utilizing their songs as learning texts, refugee children will also be invited to co-develop an arts-based educational resource kit that teaches service providers and educators about their experiences of displacement, migration, and settlement. As part of this research, Kate using an innovative, participatory research creation method they developed called, “collaborative ethnographic songwriting.” A robust qualitative approach for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating research data through music, collaborative ethnographic songwriting supports underserved people and communities to narrate and document their lived experiences, perspectives, and stories in recorded song. Using this method, Kate has worked with queer and transgender individuals and families, breast cancer survivors, and community agencies.
Kate also teaches undergraduate courses at York University in Children, Childhood & Youth Studies and works on other research projects as an artist researcher using collaborative ethnographic songwriting.
Singer-songwriter and whip smart wordsmith Kate Reid is funny, feminist, queer as a three-dollar bill, and they’re sure to entertain. Slam-storytelling meets many a queer-themed tune in Kate’s songs, which just might have you rolling in the aisles with laughter or dabbing tears from your eyes. Tales about small towns, lesbian moms and donor dads, gender-bending, awkward moments at open mics, old and new loves, sexuality stereotypes, festival beer tents, and trying to secure a date at the local co-op health food store are the norm in Kate’s songs. With five albums under their belt and a slew of singles, they perform at live music venues, music and Pride festivals, youth and arts conferences, universities, public schools, union meetings, and in people’s living rooms and back yards. Kate also combines musical activism with teaching by facilitating workshops, giving concerts, and delivering musical keynote addresses for universities and colleges, secondary schools, and conferences, community service organizations. “Somewhere in Between,” a short film Kate created about their gender identity journey, has been screened at several international film festivals.
In the spring of 2020, Kate obtained a PhD in Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. For their doctoral research, Kate investigated how songs they composed based on interviews with 2SLGBTQI+ families across Canada could serve as musical learning texts to open up dialogue with underserved secondary school youth about gender, sexuality, embodiment, and relationships. These songs are from an album called Queer Across Canada and Kate created a free downloadable curriculum resource to accompany the album that teachers can use in their classrooms to supplement lessons and unit plans related to gender, sexuality, families, and equity and social justice. Prior to completing their PhD, Kate completed an MA in Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice from The University of British Columbia (2015), a Bachelor of Education from The University of British Columbia (2000), and a Baccalaureate in Arts from the University of Guelph (1997).
In 2021, Kate completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Children, Childhood & Youth Studies at York University on a research project entitled, Connecting Culture and Childhood: Using Musical Arts Programming to Promote Belonging for Young Newcomers in the GTA with ethnomusicologist and Associate Professor, Dr. Andrea Emberly. This study investigated the impact that participation in a children’s community choir has on the resettlement experiences and well-being of newcomer and refugee children.
