Musician, music researcher, and writer Kathleen Shimeta has enjoyed a singing career performing art songs, chamber music, oratorio, and opera. As a strong advocate for contemporary American composers, she has premiered works written for her by late 20th- and 21st-century composers.

For over 20 years, Ms. Shimeta has put forth the music of Canadian American composer Gena Branscombe. Her CD, Ah! Love, I Shall Find Thee: Songs of Gena Branscombe, is on the Albany Records label. In addition, she co-authored and performed a one-woman show about the composer, Life! Love! Song! A Visit with Gena Branscombe. She is Co-Founder and Chair of The Gena Branscombe Project.

For her work researching, reviving, and recreating the orchestral score of Branscombe’s dramatic oratorio, Pilgrims of Destiny, the Library of Congress interviewed Ms. Shimeta for the Researcher’s Blog and The Gazette. The original and only conductor’s score is held at the Library. 

The National League of American Pen Women invited Ms. Shimeta to present her speech, Bringing Back Branscombe to the National League of American Pen Women: A Composer Lost, Now Found for national meetings and for the Santa Clara, CA chapter. In 2024, she will give the speech for the New York City chapter. 

Invited to write articles about Miss Branscombe’s life and music, Ms. Shimeta has been published in the WomenArts Journal, the Sigma Alpha Iota Pan Pipes magazine, the Association of Canadian Women Composers Journal and others. She has presented at the Women Composers Conference at Indiana University in Indiana, PA, and at the Women in the Arts Conference at the University of Missouri St. Louis. She is also featured on an episode of the podcast The Ladies Speak.

Ms. Shimeta received her Bachelor’s degree from St. Cloud State University in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and her Master of Music from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati.