Written by Claire Schmaltz 

For some students choir is just another class, but for others it’s a place where they can be heard. This is exactly how Catlin Kemker wants it to be. 

Kemker’s love for theater started at a very young age. 

¨In high school, my schedule didn’t align with both choir and band, but I still did vocal solo and ensemble and have had private vocal lessons,¨ she said, adding that although she was not able to join musical theater until her sophomore year in high school, she was still able to accomplish a lot. She played Starkey in Peter Pan, Mary Poppins in Mary Poppins and Marian the Librarian in The Music Man. 

Kemker started her career out as a sub for a local dance studio. 

“That is when I realized that I loved teaching, specifically in the performing arts,” she said.

During the Fall of 2024 Kemker student taught both band and choir at Westport Middle School. Then, in the Spring of 2025, she took a long-term substitute position teaching middle school band and general music at Silver Creek Middle School. After that job is when she found her full time teaching position as Salem. 

Kemker was hired in early May of last year to teach choir at Salem Middle and High schools . 

¨At the time this position was posted, I was regularly searching the Indiana Department of Education website for open positions,¨ she said. 

When Kemker found out she was hired she already had distinct goals for both her choir and theater programs. 

¨For theatre, I wanted to put on a full scale production, I wanted to incorporate students from all three schools to promote growth of the program for future years, and I wanted to leave the bank accounts with more money in them than I started with,” she said. 

With the help of staff and community members, she was able to accomplish all three of her goals in one year of teaching. 

¨I feel really grateful for such a successful start and hopeful that it will set us up well for future years,¨ she said.

¨For the choir program, I wanted to ensure that I was providing the students with consistency and with a strong musical foundation, and I do believe we have had a good start on that front as well. My goal is always for students to feel they have been provided the tools to connect with music in any way they choose. This means that they should have enough knowledge that if they wanted to major in music in the future or go on to do choir somewhere else, they wouldn’t feel ill-equipped, but if they have a more casual relationship with music, they should still feel included and engaged throughout the class.¨

“Choir has been really fun this year,” said senior Sonya Dixon. “We’ve improved a lot since Ms. Kemker started working here. I recommend joining choir or piano to broaden your musical knowledge or just to have fun.”

Moments like these make her job worth it, but it is not always this rewarding. Kemker said the most difficult part about being a choir director is convincing students that they deserve to be good at something even if it takes work for them to get there. 

¨Every student enters a performing arts class with different needs,” she said. “Some students are already accomplished performers and need high level, technical feedback in order for them to excel to their fullest potential.¨ 

Kemker said it takes time to learn what each student needs to feel authentically themselves,but she tries her best to make the best atmosphere for her students everyday. 

For Kemker, choir is not just about directing music, it is about shaping students and building confidence one song at a time.