About Kim
Bridging scholarly inquiry and performance practice, Kimberly Soby, PhD, examines how gender shapes musical meaning and aesthetic expectation through feminist and queer frameworks.
Her research engages interdisciplinary methods and questions of gendered perception with a particular focus on Ethel Smyth, celebrity studies, and contemporary popular music and digital culture. Soby has presented at national and international conferences, including the Association for Literary Critics, Scholars, and Writers; the National Opera Association; Feminist Theory & Music; the University of Surrey's "Actors, Singers, and Celebrity Cultures Across Centuries" conference; and the IAFOR European Conference on Arts and Humanities. Her work is featured on SMT-Pod (Season 2), where she discusses gendered musical settings of Chamisso's Frauenliebe und -leben, and she has given an online lecture for the Artsong and Gender in Dialogue series.
Her teaching experience spans a wide range of subjects and institutions. At the University of Connecticut, she currently teaches Popular Music and Diversity in American Society as a faculty member at the Avery Point campus. Through her work as a graduate student at UConn, she taught across the music, English, and women's, gender, and sexuality studies departments, also earning the 2025 Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award from the School of Fine Arts. She is on faculty at Connecticut College, where she teaches courses in gender and music, popular music, and film music. Earlier teaching positions include Nova Southeastern University and New World School of the Arts in Miami, where she taught across the music and musical theater departments. She also maintains a private voice and piano studio.
As a performer and new music specialist, Soby appears on recordings released by Naxos, Albany Records, and Centaur Records. Her work as a performer-educator has included teaching artistry with Florida Grand Opera's Cadenza program and three seasons of touring with Young Patronesses of the Opera's In School Opera Tour, bringing classical music and opera to schools across South Florida.
Soby earned her Bachelor of Music degree magna cum laude in Vocal Performance from the University of Connecticut and dual Master of Music degrees with Academic Honors in Vocal Performance and Opera Studies from New England Conservatory, where she was the sole recipient of the Opera Studies degree in 2010 and an Opera Fellow with Opera Boston. She completed her PhD in Music Theory and History and a Graduate Certificate in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, both at the University of Connecticut.
She serves as an editorial associate for the American Jewish Year Book, an annual scholarly publication based at UConn and the University of Miami, and as journal administrator for The Opera Journal, published through the National Opera Association.
Outside of music, she enjoys the beach, cats, and the Oxford comma—and is enthusiastically (and, by her own admission, obnoxiously) devoted to UConn basketball.
