Virginia Tech® home

Kimberly Loeffert

A headshot of a woman with short, dark hair, wearing a black jacket, smiling.
Kimberly Loeffert, Assistant Professor

School of Performing Arts
242-H Squires Student Center
290 College Ave.
Blacksburg, VA 24061
540-231-5335
kimloeffert@vt.edu

Kimberly Goddard Loeffert is a music theorist, saxophonist, and equity advocate who serves as Assistant Professor in the Virginia Tech School of Performing Arts, having previously served on the faculty at Oklahoma State University (OSU). Loeffert is President of the North American Saxophone Alliance (NASA), a founding member of the NASA Committee for Gender Equity (formerly the Committee on the Status of Women), and recently held posts as Chair of the OSU Women’s Faculty Council and Faculty Fellow for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the College of Arts and Sciences at OSU.

Passionate about engaging underrepresented groups in teaching, research, and service, Loeffert’s recent research has focused on evaluating representation of minoritized composers and musicians in music theory pedagogy and scholarship. She is under contract with Oxford University Press for a co-edited volume with John Peterson (James Madison University) titled "Modeling Musical Analysis," which seeks to amplify the work of music theory scholars from underrepresented backgrounds by bringing together essays written by minoritized scholars modeling analytical writing using a variety of music theories and genres. She has presented at regional, national, and international music conferences for music theory, music in higher education, band, wind instruments, and saxophone.

Loeffert is the baritone saxophonist for the h2 quartet with whom she has won numerous chamber music prizes, including First Place Gold Medal at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and First Place at the inaugural North American Saxophone Alliance Quartet Competition. She can be heard with h2 on seven critically acclaimed discs: "Infinity Mirror" (2020), "Soul Searching" (2019), "Enrapture" (2017), "Hard Line" (2015), "Groove Machine" (2012), "Times & Spaces" (2010), and "Generations" (2008). Loeffert has performed at prestigious venues around the world, including the Guarnerius Center for the Performing Arts (Serbia), Merkin Hall (New York City), the National Concert Hall (Dublin, Ireland), and the Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles), as well as university recital halls across the country. She appears in a nationally syndicated PBS television episode of "Backstage Pass," and she is a Vandoren and Yamaha Performing Artist. Loeffert is also a co-founder and co-host of the Great Plains Saxophone Workshop.

In addition to her work at Virginia Tech and OSU, Loeffert has taught music theory, saxophone, and chamber music at Michigan State University, and music theory and aural skills at Florida State University where she earned a Ph.D. in Music Theory with a dissertation titled “Association and Interpretation in Recent Chamber Music: Gesture and Dialogue in Three Compositions by Franco Donatoni,” which addressed musical gesture in the performance and analysis of the chamber music of Franco Donatoni with particular attention to the unique dialogic facet of multiple interpreters contributing to the formulation of a single, unified, musical product. Loeffert holds a D.M.A. and M.M. in Saxophone Performance, as well as an M.M. in Music Theory Pedagogy from Michigan State University, and she completed a B.M. in Saxophone Performance and Jazz Studies at Northwestern University. Her primary saxophone teachers have included Joe Lulloff, Frederick Hemke, and Joseph Wytko.

  • Music theory
  • Saxophone
  • Chamber music
  • New music
  • Pedagogy
  • PhD, Music Theory, Florida State University, 2016
  • DMA, Saxophone Performances, Michigan State University, 2011
  • MM, Music Theory Pedagogy, Michigan State University, 2010
  • MM, Saxophone Performance, Michigan State University, 2007
  • BM, Saxophone Performance and Jazz Studies, Northwestern University, 2005
  • President-Elect, North American Saxophone Alliance
  • Chair, Publications Committee, Music Theory Midwest
  • Books
    - (In progress) "Modeling Music Analysis," edited with John Peterson, under contract with Oxford University Press
    - (In progress) Digital authorship of 110 Skill Checks for Laitz, Steven G. and Michael Callahan. "The Complete Musician: An Integrated Approach to Tonal Theory, Analysis, and Listening," 5th ed. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press
  • Journals (peer-reviewed)
    “Gender Representation at North American Saxophone Alliance Biennial Conferences from 2008–2020.” The Saxophone Symposium 44: 33–49. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv2524xf6.7
  • Reviews
    “Review of Performing Knowledge: Twentieth-Century Music in Analysis and Performance, by Daphne Leong.” College Music Symposium 61/1 (May). https://doi.org/10.18177/sym.2020.61.1.rev.11504
  • Audio Publications
    - 2020 "Infinity Mirror," CD, with the h2 quartet, published by Blue Griffin Recording
    - 2019 "Soul Searching," CD, with the h2 quartet, published by Blue Griffin Recording
    - 2018 "Handful of Dust: the music of Igor Karača," CD, with the h2 quartet, published by Blue Griffin Recording
    - 2016 "Enrapture," CD, with the h2 quartet, published by Blue Griffin Recording
    - 2015 "Hard Line," CD, with the h2 quartet, published by Blue Griffin Recording
    - 2012 "Groove Machine," CD, with the h2 quartet, published by Blue Griffin Recording
    - 2010 "Times & Spaces," CD, with the h2 quartet, published by Blue Griffin Recording
    - 2008 "Living with the Classics Volume 2," CD, with the h2 quartet, published by Arizona University Records
    - 2008 "Generations," CD, with the h2 quartet, published by Blue Griffin Recordin
    - 2008 "Tribute to Adolphe Sax Volume XIV," CD, with the h2 quartet, published by Arizona University Records