Story

Hi there! I’m Kate Victor, a musician currently living and working in Brooklyn, NY. I sing and play a few different things, but it took me a while to get here, so here’s a little background before you continue exploring my website.

I grew up in Fairfield, Connecticut in a musical family. Music was a constant in our house, whether it was my dad playing Raffi songs on guitar for my three sisters and I, or my mom playing ‘The Swan’ on piano as we pretended to be ballerinas prancing down the hallway, or belting out entire musical theatre soundtracks as we all cleaned the house for a family gathering. My sisters and I sang together a lot, at home, in school, in church, and a local county choir that we all participated in through high school. I started taking piano lessons at around age 7, but stopped once I took up the cello in 4th grade. Throughout my school years, I was lucky enough to play cello in my school orchestras and also in a baroque quartet at my church. At the end of middle school, I started participating in the school plays and musicals, and continued to participate in school and local productions into my college years.

From 2008-2012, I attended William Paterson University of New Jersey and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in music education and jazz vocal performance. It was quite a transformational time, as I learned what a career in music might mean for me, as someone who was interested in so many different things. It was there that I really honed my skills as a jazz musician, continued to play cello in the symphonic and chamber orchestras, resumed piano lessons, and started teaching myself to play the guitar. After graduating, I did a short stint teaching middle school and high school choirs, in combination with juggling multiple other after-school lesson-studio jobs in New Jersey, but inevitably decided that I was not ready to teach full-time. I wanted to further pursue my performing career. So, when the opportunity arose to move to Brooklyn with some friends, I immediately accepted.

Transitioning to life in the city wasn’t necessarily easy for me as a suburban gal, and my commutes back and forth to teach at one of the Jersey lesson studios from Brooklyn were pretty challenging. Eventually I found more work at a lesson studio in the West Village and began teaching lessons and coaching kid rock bands there. It was here that I really started to hone my skills on guitar and bass as I taught the bands, and traded lessons with coworkers. And as I started to form more connections in New York, I started playing music with more and more people. The first Brooklyn band I played with was called Met City, the former band name for the artist Loren Berí. With Loren, I got my feet wet in the Brooklyn music scene, playing in the rehearsal studios in Bushwick, navigating the city before GPS, and doubling on cello while singing backup vocals. Since then I’ve played with many different bands and artists, including the YY sisters, Grand Kid, Newcomers Club, Emily Jeanne Brown, Pink Flamingo Rhythm Revue, Adam Travis and the Soul, Katie Martucci, Bonomo, and many others.

Somewhere within the past five years, I started writing and performing my own songs in New York venues, and have plans to release an EP in the coming year. Please visit my Patreon page to learn more about this exciting project.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read a bit about me and where I come from. I hope you enjoy perusing my website.

<3 Kate