Vocalist | Composer | Arranger 

Kate Blechinger is an award-winning singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist originally from oskana ka-asastēki (Regina, Saskatchewan) on Treaty 4 Territory. Now based on Treaty 6 Territory in amiskwacîwâskahikan (Edmonton, Alberta), Kate has been active in the Western Canadian music scene as a solo artist and collaborator since 2013. Kate is a founding member of the 1940's close harmony group, The Jivin' Belles. As a bassist and vocalist, Kate has been part of several Citadel Theatre productions, and accompanied such artists as Ben Sures, Mallory Chipman, Marissa Karpiak, and Borrowed and Blue.

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Kate makes music about loss, growth, love, and the interconnectivity of life. Merging many different genres, including folk, jazz, pop, and blues, Kate centres sharing human experience at the heart of all her songs. Kate's songs ebb and flow between poetic and playful, and vulnerable and sincere, all delivered with “a voice like liquid peace” (CBC News).

Kate’s 2018 debut album, Under a Dancing Sky, features innovative folk-jazz arrangements of Joni Mitchell’s compositions alongside several of Kate’s original compositions. Kate won the Jazz Recording of the Year award at the 2019 Edmonton Music Awards for her version of ‘Night in the City’, and her album was nominated for the CJSF Radio Julian Award of Excellence for Emerging Canadian Jazz Artists. Kate’s arrangements and compositions have been featured on CKUA Community Radio, CBC Radio-Canada, and CBC Radio Two, among other campus and community stations.

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Kate's music career is balanced by her work as an active educator and mentor in the Edmonton music scene. Kate is an in-demand vocal instructor, as well as the co-creator and writer of the Musical Mornings educational concert series for children ages 1-5, and lead instructor of the Music Box Babies program, both at the Winspear Centre. In recent years, she has been trained by renowned Orff specialist, Marcelline Moody, and has begun writing and releasing children's music. You can hear two of her original childrens compositions, “I Don't Wanna Go To Bed Blues” and “amiskwaciy-wâskahikan”, on the Edmonton Public Library's album, Sing it Edmonton: Songs from the Neighbourhood (2025).

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Kate is currently workshopping new music that further explores her prairie roots, and covers themes of grief, loss, continuing bonds, with plans to record a sophomore EP in 2025-2026.

 

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