Kate Higgins grew up in Auburn, AL and got her first gig at age fifteen playing piano and singing in her mother’s restaurant. With a mother who in earlier years had been a singer and actress in New York, Kate grew up familiar with the great American songbook and started playing piano at six years old. She never had to be told to practice on the family’s turquoise piano (decorated with bright red and yellow flowers), and when she got on stage to sing of a ‘man in France who lost his pants’ while visiting the Sears Tower in Chicago, her mother decided to keep encouraging her daughter’s musical interests. By the time Kate was in high school, the colorful but jangly upright had been replaced by a grand piano. She went on from there to major in jazz theory performance and composition at Auburn University, and thanks to a helpful teacher and mentor in the jazz department, she was encouraged to take music beyond the Alabama state line. Soonafter she graduated, Kate moved to Los Angeles, a move which proved to be harder than she realized: “I pounded the pavement trying to get going in the music industry. I got into a cycle of doing music for the wrong reasons and I was feeling the pressure from back home with people telling me I could be a star. The more pressure I put on myself, the less I enjoyed it, and the less creative I was.” She continued to write songs and perform at clubs, but something was missing. Kate found solace in playing hymns. Sitting down at the piano to sing and arrange gospel songs brought some of the love and purity back into music, and it gave her a place of refuge. ‘I thought to myself, maybe if I’m experiencing some peace from this, then perhaps others will, too.’ She recorded these hymns and gave copies to a few friends without much expectation. One friend told of playing her hymns during a communion service at a prison where he watched prisoners listen and cry. A woman said that the music calmed her in the mornings before she went to work. It seemed that there was a wider audience for her music than she had initially thought. Others were finding refuge, too. Kate has been working in voiceover for several years and truly loves it. She can go from a little kid on a Saturday morning cartoon to a British vamp without missing a beat. A great performer, she sounds great with a band or solo and has recently put on stellar performances at Hotel Café and Kulak’s Woodshed. She wants you to know that she always brushes her teeth before gigs and she loves her man, Jess.