Kate Light is a librettist, lyricist and poet in New York City. She is a member of the BMI-Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, where she is at work on two musicals. She is also a professional violinist and a member of the orchestra of The New York City Opera.
Kate’s works include the libretto of “The Life and Love of Joe Coogan,” an opera adapted from an episode of the Dick Van Dyke Show (composer: Paul Salerni); Metamorphoses, a musical-in-progress based on Ovid’s life and work (composer, Masatora Goya); the texts of Oceanophony and Einstein's Mozart: Two Geniuses, for narrator and musicians; and three volumes of poetry, Gravity's Dream (Donald Justice Award), Open Slowly, and The Laws of Falling Bodies (Nicholas Roerich Prize, Story Line Press). Her lyrics for the song “Here Beside Me” are heard in Disney’s Mulan II.
As narrator of her pieces, Kate has appeared with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Louisville Orchestra, Colorado Chamber Players, and at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Also known for her lively poetry readings, her recent engagements include the New York Times' "Great Read in the Park," Spoleto Festival USA, Dodge Poetry Festival, 3rd Annual DC International Poetry Festival, Interlochen Center for the Arts, Zimmerli Museum at Rutgers University, Wordstock Festival at Penn State University, Woodstock Poetry Festival, Cal State LA, Colorado College, Fairfield, Cornell, Vanderbilt, CW Post, West Chester, and Lehigh Universities, and the Musashino Art University in Tokyo.
Kate's poetry has appeared in The Paris Review, Dark Horse, Hudson Review, New York Sun, Washington Post Book World, Feminist Studies, and many other publications, and was featured four times on Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac. Her work is included in the anthologies The Penguin Book of the Sonnet, Western Wind, Poetry Daily, and Good Poems for Hard Times (edited by Keillor), and her lyrics for the song Here Beside Me are heard in Disney's Mulan II. Kate has been Visiting Professor at Cornell University and twice at the Musashino Art University in Tokyo.
Says Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love: "Kate Light has been one of my favorite poets for years and years now. To my eye and ear, she operates as a full master...Her work gives me shivers."
Says Cho-Liang Lin, concert violinist and Music Director, SummerFest La Jolla: "Kate Light's words in Oceanophony, like her other works, are delightful, whimsical, informative and funny. The words lent themselves so easily to music that they seem like beautiful musical notes--each one a droplet of sparkle...Einstein's Mozart is an informed, insightful and heartfelt tribute to two giants of mankind."
Says poet Billy Collins: "It's hard to think of a poet so aptly named as Kate Light, except, of course, for Wordsworth. The step of her poems is light, and plenty of that luminous stuff is shed here."