Local musician Kate Minogue, Davidson College Class of 2005, takes a seat outside the Sloan Music Center, where she is finishing up post-graduation work as an assistant to the college music department.

text and photo by Laurie Dennis

When Kate Minogue arrived in Davidson in the fall of 2001 as a college freshman, she had a talent for the classical flute, but no experience in vocals or guitar or Irish music. In fact, she was too shy to sing even in front of her family.

Now, college degree in hand, Ms. Minogue is a familiar face at musical events in town, where she solos in front of audiences large and small while strumming folk tunes on her acoustic guitar. She produced her own CD in 2006 and she’s also the lead vocalist for the Beggar Boys, an East Coast Irish music group. On Sunday, she’ll be performing on the Village Green as part of Davidson’s Art on the Green festival.

“I’m going to take every musical performance opportunity I can,” she said.

Listen to The Beggar Boys perform “Song in the Air,” with Kate Minogue, Henry Lebedinsky and Michael Albert. (MP3 courtesy of The Beggar Boys, recorded by Jennifer Foster.) CLICK HERE>

FLUTE BEGINNINGS

It all started with a decision in elementary school to pick the flute as the instrument to play in band.

“I took off with the flute,” Ms. Minogue said. “I was pretty much all flute through high school.”

Growing up in suburban Baltimore, Ms. Minogue was also influenced musically by her guitar-playing, song-writing father, Richard.

“I heard a lot of blue grass and it was a tradition to sing at family gatherings,” she noted.

At Davidson College, where she majored in economics, Ms. Minogue continued to study both the flute and the piccolo, and was the co-principal flute of the college’s symphony orchestra. In college she also realized it was time to test her vocal chords.

“I was always terrified of singing,” she said with a grin. “But I decided to audition for the choir, and that got me going.”

She also took up the guitar, and by her sophomore year she got up the nerve to try her first “open mike” night at the college union.

The next year she spent three months in County Galway at the University of Ireland, studying the Celtic wooden flute.

“I spent a lot of time in the pubs there and I saw Irish music for what it was really meant to be,” she said. “I wasn’t there to play, I was really there to learn. And I just loved to listen.”

The wooden flute uses slightly different fingering from the classical, and Ms. Minogue said the Celtic tunes she learned place a higher stress on ornamentation. “Tunes are passed on by ear,” she added. “You’ll sit in on a session and no one will be using any music.”

THE BEGGAR BOYS

Ms. Minogue began to perform music at Summit Coffee on Davidson’s Main Street, and it was during a gig there that she met Henry Lebedinsky, who was then the new director of music at Davidson’s St. Alban’s Episcopal Church. Mr. Lebedinsky asked if she’d be interested in joining his group, the Beggar Boys, which was in need of a female vocalist.

“It was a very serendipitous meeting,” said Ms. Minogue. “Now the musical avenue I’m most excited about is the Beggar Boys.”

Mr. Lebedinsky described Ms. Minogue as a central part of the band. “She’s really made our sound what it is,” he said.

He praised Ms. Minogue’s range as a mezzo soprano. “She has a warm, inviting, dark, bright, charming voice,” he said. “It’s well-suited to her music.”

FUTURE PLANS

Despite all of Ms. Minogue’s background in the flute, her first CD made no use of that instrument, in either its wooden or silver forms. Instead, “Kate Minogue: Right Now,” features 10 tracks of Minogue as vocalist, and also has her playing guitar, mandolin and even the piano. The first track, “No Consolation,” was written by her father, but the rest are all by Kate.

“I still love silver flute performances,” she said, but that’s no longer her only focus. “I have a billion musical ideas in my head.”

In July, Ms. Minogue will complete a two-year stint as an assistant to the Davidson College Music Department. This work has helped expand Ms. Minogue’s interests by involving her in a variety of performances.

“I’m the point person doing the promotions and working back stage for a lot of musical events at the college,” she said. “I’ve also learned a lot about recording studios.”

After finishing her work at the college, Ms. Minogue plans to head to Asheville to attend Celtic week classes and jam sessions for the Swannanoa Gathering at Warren Wilson College.

After that? She shrugs her shoulders; that’s yet to be decided.

In the meantime, catch her at the town green Sunday, where she will perform at 1 p.m. together with Kelley Gardner. Or catch her at Summit, where she is scheduled for several performances this spring.

She may still feel nervous jitters about standing up to perform, but her Davidson-grown musical abilities are proven crowd pleasers. And as her CD title proclaims, her talents are here to enjoy “right now.”