Introduction - I'm Kate

 Hi, I’m Kate. I’m a flute player and I’m a mom.  I started playing the flute when I was 11 years-old in middle school band class and it wasn’t long before I fell in love with playing the flute. I was good at playing the flute - really good, I stood out among my peers and other kids asked me “How are you so good at flute?”  I continued practicing hard through high school and I went to college on a music scholarship with the hope of becoming a professional flutist. Collegiate level musicians who are training to become professional performers train as hard as athletes. Aspiring pro-musicians' lives revolve around playing music. I practiced 4 hours a day everyday for four years - I spent 10-15 hours a week in rehearsals and every week I had a 90-minute individual lesson with my flute professor.  I practiced so long and hard that I literally gave myself a fat lip with swelling so severe I had trouble playing and talking for an entire weekend. I collected my degree and upon graduation and I slammed my flute case shut.

After graduation, I started a career in entertainment, got married, moved to LA and had kids. By then I was too busy to practice so my flute stayed in its case for over a decade. At age four my daughter started trying to make her own instruments and said that she wanted to play in a pretend band. I decided to show her my flute and she was delighted. She grabbed my piccolo and started calling it her “little flute” and I played the “big flute”. When I became a parent, I was not prepared to lose my identity and it hurt so much that my daughter had no idea that I could play music. She didn’t know who I really was. In my mind, I was still a musician even if I wasn’t making music.

Then the pandemic hit. I got laid off and the preschools closed. I had no job, no childcare and, like everyone else on planet Earth, I was completely disoriented. During quarantine, my daughter still wanted to make music so I got our “big” and “little” flutes. After our first pandemic jam session I discovered that for the first time in a long time I didn’t want to put my flute back in its case.

It’s been 8 months since the world changed and my kids are back in childcare - at least part-time. I still don’t have a job but I have a little bit of time.

Now’s my chance. I’m going to start playing again. I don’t know what this will lead to: a creative outlet, the chance to finally become a professional performer, a way to bond with other musicians. For now, my goal is to feel like me again and show my musical talent to the world.