Dr. Kaitlin Bove serves as Director of Bands and Assistant Professor of Music at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California where she directs the Symphonic Band and Viking Ensemble in addition to instructing coursework in American multicultural music. She is artistic director and conductor of the BDWinds, the youth wind ensemble branch of the Blue Devils Performing Arts organization, and the Oakland Municipal Band which offers summer concerts in Oakland’s Lake Merritt Park. Prior to these appointments, she was the Director of Instrumental Music at Pierce College in Puyallup, Washington where she was awarded “Outstanding Faculty of the Year” in 2020. Kaitlin holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts in Wind Conducting from University of Kentucky where she was a student of Cody Birdwell, a teaching assistant, and premiered her wind transcription of Caroline Shaw’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Partita for 8 Voices in 2019.

Dr. Bove is from Lafayette, California and earned her Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in Education from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California where she studied with Eric Hammer. Prior to her doctoral work, she taught instrumental music at the secondary level in Payson, Utah. In this setting, she instructed courses in band, orchestra, marching band, jazz ensemble, AP music theory, guitar, folk music, musical theater, and mariachi.

Kaitlin is founder of the And We Were Heard initiative which matches underrepresented composers of wind band literature with volunteer ensembles in order to generate quality recordings of the music of diverse compositional voices. In the vein of this philosophy, Dr. Bove maintains a high commitment to commissioning and performing works by both living and historically marginalized composers. She is also co-founder of Girls Who Conduct, a mentorship program that supports gender parity on the conducting podium, and is the organization’s High School-Collegiate Virtual Mentorship Program Coordinator.

Dr. Bove currently serves as the DEIA chair with California Band Directors Association where she coordinates the annual Social Impact Consortium which generates new, culturally-relevant literature for wind band, premiered yearly by California All State ensembles. She is a member of National Band Association, College Band Directors National Association, Women Band Director International, and the scholarship committee for Lift Up Our Voices. Kaitlin supports local music programs and educators with frequent clinics and organizing professional development opportunities in addition to directing honor bands and adjudicating festivals across the United States. She is also an active arranger and transcriber with works for band and flexible instrumentation available through Murphy Music Press.

Kaitlin’s professional interests include working with diverse student and community populations, cross-curricular collaborative experiences, and relevancy and shifting priorities in the 21st century music classroom. In her free time, Kaitlin enjoys playing banjo, hiking, podcast bingeing, and spending time with her Pug-Tzu, Knut.