Katrina Beddoe Koch

1980 -

Katrina Koch, a singer, pianist, and conductor, has taught music at two Seventh-day Adventist academies. She has also been active in church music as a choir conductor, singer, and pianist wherever she has taught.

Katrina was born in Mountain View, California, and raised in La Grande Oregon, one of three children and the oldest daughter of Jack and Carol Ann Albertsen Beddoe. (The surname was changed to St. Clair, the father's original last name, in 2005.) Music was an important activity in the home, the mother and father being amateur musicians who played the piano/organ and trumpet, respectively. Her father did some music study at the university level and also owned a music store for several years.

Katrina started piano lessons at age eight and continued for six years with Lanetta Paul, an experience she would later describe as "amazing." She continued to play piano in high school, where she developed the ability to play by ear. At age fifteen, she started study in voice, an area that, along with conducting, continues as her major performance emphasis.

She attended Gem State Academy in Idaho, where she studied music under Waldemar Wensell, Alma Kravig, and Nicole Shorter. Although in those years she considered the possibility of a teaching career in the area of Bible and/or English, she became increasingly interested in teaching music. Accordingly, following graduation from GSA in 1998, she enrolled at Walla Walla College, now University, as a major in music education with an English minor.

Katrina sang in the choirs at WWC under Bruce Rasmussen, Cyril Myers, and John Dennison and pursued voice study with Rasmussen and Christine Janis. While at WWC, she also spent one year as a taskforce worker at Takoma Academy in Maryland, where she assisted in music, English, and drama. During that year she sang in the choir and Pro Musica at Columbia Union College, now Washington Adventist University, under the direction of James Bingham. Additionally, she was a section leader at the Walla Walla First Congregational United Church of Christ for two years.

Katrina graduated cum laude from WWC with a B.Mus. in education in 2004. That summer she married Lorin Koch, who had completed a bachelor's degree in religion and mass communications in 2002 and a master's in teaching in 2004, both at WWC. He had grown up in a musical family and is musically active in many performance areas. They began teaching in the fall of 2004 at Livingstone Adventist Academy in Eugene, Oregon, she teaching music at the academy and related church school and he teaching Bible and other classes and assisting in music by conducting the orchestra.

After teaching for three years, she pursued graduate study at the University of Oregon, where she completed an M.Mus. in choral conducting in 2009. Sharon Paul was her primary professor, and Laura Wayte provided instruction in voice and diction. During this time she served as substitute conductor for the Salem Adventist Men's Chorus when its conductor, Lou Wildman, was on medical leave. She also conducted selections from the Messiah when members and friends of the East Salem Adventist church joined to form a choir and orchestra for a performance in 2008.

The Kochs then taught at Indiana Academy from 2009-2011, where she taught choir, band, and handbells at the academy. While at IA, she organized and coordinated the annual choir, band, and handchime choir festival. During their second year in Indiana, she taught elementary music at Cicero Adventist Elementary School. Lorin taught computer, Bible, and history classes at the academy and, in his second year, directed the band and handbell ensemble.

The Kochs now reside in Salem, Oregon, where she is in charge of classroom music and beginning band and he directs the handbell choir at Livingstone Adventist Academy. They have two daughters, Liljana Clare Koch, who was born in March 2011, and Cadence Aurelia who was born in May 2013.

ds/2014

Source: Information provided by Katrina Beddoe Koch, May/June 2011 and November 2012; information provided by Lorin Koch, 2014.