Don't worry, just whistle

Singing has always been a part of life for Kate Hart ’14. She started in a children’s choir, continued singing through high school, and was a member of the university gospel choir, Voices of Glory, while studying at the Case School of Engineering.

She didn’t add songwriter to her repertoire until a fateful, snowy winter evening as she walked up Cedar Hill, battling a blizzard to make her way home. The journey through the polar vortexlike event put her in the mind of famed Antarctic explorer Earnest Shackleton, who struggled to keep his crew alive for two months on an ice floe after their ship sank during a 1915 expedition.

“I wrote the song in my head as I made my way through my own version of the Antarctic,” Hart said. “What makes it funny for me is that it’s told from Shackleton’s perspective, and he’s telling his crew, ‘I may have led you to your death — sorry about that.’”

Hart, a process engineer for Therm-X in the Cleveland suburb of Independence, is also a self-described “nerd folk musician” who has combined a love of music and writing into a well-tuned hobby. She’s a singer, a musician, and a prolific songwriter who likes to make her audiences smile.

“I’m allergic to sincerity,” she quipped. “I don’t write love songs. Although I did write a song called “Love Song,” which is about R2D2 from Star Wars.”

Hart has produced three albums featuring songs with titles such as the whimsical “Running Sucks,” “Don’t Worry, Just Whistle” and “Eat your Vegetables.” A veteran of open mic nights, Hart also plays music clubs and parties in the 1980s cover band, The 80s Ladies, for whom she is a vocalist and keyboard player.

Her love for science has been translated through her songs in various forms. One example is the tune Baby, We Have Chemistry.

I know I’m fallin for you it’s really not that hard feel the pull of your electrons cuz I’m positively charged.

Hart majored in chemical engineering at Case and wrote the weekly comic “Philosofish” for The Observer. She met her husband at first year orientation. Both remain connected to the school. Ray Krajci ’13 is the Operations Engineering Manager at Sears think{box]. Hart most recently volunteered on campus as part of the alumni team that competed against faculty and student teams in The Engineering Game, the highlight of Engineers Week 2022.

Hart, a Cleveland Heights resident, has released her music on the Bandcamp website, which is home to self-released music by artists from around the globe. She is also an accomplished ukulele player and started a page for lessons on songwriting and ukulele on the website Skillshare.com.

If there’s one lesson anyone would learn from Hart, it’s that you have to be serious about not taking life too seriously — even when walking home through a Cleveland blizzard. To hear Kate Hart’s music, go to katehart.bandcamp.com/music. John Canale is a freelance writer from Northeast Ohio. To comment on this story, please email casealum@caselaum.org.

Have an alumni adventure to share? Email robert.smith@casealum.org