Kat Reinhert

Position
Professor
Affiliated Departments
Expertise
vocal pedagogy

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As a songwriter, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, burgeoning producer, author, and educator, Kat Reinhert is an artist who defies categorization. She has released five independently produced albums and worked alongside artists and songwriters such as Anat Fort, Jo Lawry, Ross Pederson, Michael Leonhart, Josh Logan, Stephen Lit, and David Cook, as well as written for Sesame Street and collaborated on podcast theme songs.

As an author, she has been published in multiple peer-reviewed journals and books and has edited and coauthored several books on songwriting, contemporary voice, and popular music, most notably Songwriting for Music Educators and Action-Based Approaches in Popular Music Education.

Her love of sharing knowledge led her to pursue a doctorate in music education with an emphasis on popular music education from the University of Miami, where she was also the director of contemporary voice from 2017 to 2019 before relocating back to New York City. She is also the cofounder of Songwriting for Music Educators, a company dedicated to empowering educators to create and explore songwriting for themselves and with their students.

Reinhert currently splits time between Boston and New York City, where she continues to pursue artistic and creative projects.

Career Highlights
  • Recordings include albums It Could Happen (2001), Chrysalis (2008), Spark (2015), Home Movie (2017), Dead Reckoning (2021), and singles "Behind," "Better Without You," "The Thief," and "Hiding in the Dark" (2021)
  • Author and coeditor of Action-Based Approaches for Popular Music Education (editor and co-author, 2021), Songwriting for Music Educators (co-author, 2020), and Popular Music Education: Perspectives and Practices (author of chapter "Singers in Higher Education: Training Popular Music Vocalists," 2019)
  • Cofounder of Songwriting for Music Educators
  • President of the Association for Popular Music Education (2019–2021)
Awards
  • Finalist in the John Lennon Songwriting Competition
Education
  • Ph.D., University of Miami in music education
  • M.M., University of Miami, Frost School of Music in jazz performance/pedagogy 
  • B.M., Manhattan School of Music in jazz/commercial voice 
In Their Own Words

"My hope for my students is that they come away finding more joy in the creative process, more engagement with their own artistry and a clearer path to what they want for themselves in terms of success and a career in music."

"Both through my long—and continuing—career as a performing and creative artist and songwriter and my dedication to education and all aspects of how these two worlds intertwine, I hope that I can engage students in exploring all of who they can be."