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 public pedagogy 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.
Kate is Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University, Toronto, where they are conducting a research project entitled, “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 young refugees to experience personal empowerment and express musical agency by composing and recording their stories in song. Then, young refugee songwriters will be co-developing an arts-based educational resource kit with Kate that utilizes their songs as learning texts to teach service providers and educators about their experiences of displacement, migration, and settlement.