Kate grew up in a musical family in Regina, Saskatchewan and, in addition to tenor drum, has studied voice, piano, trumpet, trombone, and percussion. She has performed with various concert bands, jazz bands, concert choirs, vocal jazz ensembles and chamber choirs at both the secondary and university levels including most recently the Grand Philharmonic Choir in Waterloo Region (ON). Her affiliation with the pipe band world began at the age of 16 when she was invited to play tenor drum for the City of Regina Pipe Band (Grade 2). With the expert instruction of Kenna Whelan, Kate quickly became a strong contributor to the CRPB midsection and a prize winning solo competitor. Kate's career in hardware engineering brought her to Ontario, where she became a member of the 78th Fraser Highlanders Bass and Tenor section for the 2006 and 2007 seasons. This midsection won the Best Bass Section award at the 2007 World Pipe Band Championships, and the drum corps as a whole won as Best Drum Corps that year. Kate's combined engineering and musical knowledge has led her to explore in much depth the intricacies of tenor drum tuning and unified corps playing - specifically from a melodic and chord-based perspective. Kate is currently putting her experience into practice as an instructor with the Paris Port Dover Pipe Band organization, which has competitive bands in grades 3, and 5 and performs at many local parades and events. She also teaches tenor drumming for Cadet squadrons and does workshops and private lessons.