Kate Rushford Murray grew up in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and attended Sacred Heart High School in Newport, VT. Her college career took her from the University of North Carolina to graduate schools at the University of Connecticut and the University of Illinois, where she earned a doctoral degree in Music Education, and then to Santa Clara University and the University of California at Berkeley, where she earned a second doctoral degree, in Religious Studies. She was an Assistant Professor of Music at the University of California at Los Angeles (’78 –’83), a software trainer for Frame Technology, and an independent consultant in Gilroy, CA, while raising the two Murray children, Hannah and Paul. She has written numerous articles and led frequent discussions in the fields of both music and religious art, and serves on a number of boards, including the Women’s Fund of New Hampshire, the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation (Piscataqua Region), The Music Hall in Portsmouth, NH, and the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, NH. With the children now grown, Kate lives on the Seacoast of New Hampshire with her husband David, a cat named Gypsy, Joe the Sheltie and her Lusitano mare, Petala, which means little flower and not kneecap.