Kate Wiley has many jobs such as coaching kickball, offering private piano lessons and running a crawfish truck, but her favorite is teaching piano at McCallum.

Ever since Wiley played her first chord and fell in love with the piano at age 3, it has been an important part of her life. As a toddler, she enjoyed messing around on the piano and learning chord progressions from her mom, a fellow musician, and in first grade, she entered the world of competitive piano. Although Wiley succeeded at competitions on the local, national and international levels, she stopped playing competitively in eighth grade when she and her family moved from Austin to Mississippi. The move spurred her decision to start giving piano lessons. 

“The arts are not funded in Mississippi,” Wiley said, “so I started teaching private piano lessons when I was a freshman.” 

Wiley’s love for teaching piano has only grown since giving her first private lesson during her freshman year. After graduating from Louisiana Tech University with a bachelor of music with a major in vocal performance and a minor in piano performance, she decided to enter teaching. 

Coming to McCallum was a no-brainer for Wiley because it provided her with an opportunity to reunite with her hometown and spread her love for piano to students who are also passionate about music.

“I had a brother and a sister that both came to McCallum,” Wiley said. “They weren’t in the fine arts, but when you get your degree in music, and especially when you get your degree in music and go into teaching, you definitely want to be in a place where you’re teaching students who have an interest in the arts and and are there because they want to be, not because someone stuck them in a class to get a credit.”

When Wiley began teaching at McCallum in 2012, the framework for the collaborative piano academy was in place, but no one had instituted it yet. Wiley worked to start the program, which accepted its first piano major in 2013. In its beginning, only one or two majors graduated a year. Since then, interest in the collaborative piano academy, and in piano classes in general, has skyrocketed, according to Wiley.

“Now, there’s often times where, at the beginning of the year, I look at my rosters, and I don’t have enough pianos for all of the kids that are signed up,” Wiley said. “As a department, we’ve consistently grown into a more difficult repertoire and push each other in a good way to be more successful and grow.”

Despite the growth of the piano academy, Wiley said it is important to limit the number of piano majors to an extent. A requirement for majors in the collaborative piano academy is to accompany shows, orchestras and various musical ensembles at McCallum, so only a certain number of piano majors can be accepted a year. More than logistics, junior Maggie Brown said the small size of the piano academy creates a safe, creative environment for majors.

“Since it’s a very small, tight-knit group, it definitely creates a feeling of safety and lack of judgment in the room because we all know each other, we’ve all heard each other play before, so we’re not going to be judging how people play, we’re just there to support each other,” said Brown, a fine arts ambassador for the piano academy. 

While Wiley directs the collaborative piano academy, she also teaches all non-major piano classes and Music Theory I, a required class for all music majors at McCallum. When Wiley was given the task of teaching all piano classes at McCallum, she decided to stack all of them together, so that Music Theory I is taught at the same time as Piano I, II, III and IV. This structure allows newer students to receive help and inspiration from advanced pianists. 

“You hear one of the piano majors play their solo, and you’re like, ‘Oh wow, somebody that’s my age,’ or even if maybe the piano major’s a freshman and you’re a junior, ‘Well, if they can do that, I feel like I can do that, or I want to do that,’” Wiley said. “It just gives you a little more drive, or a reason to put the work in.”

Although it may seem tough to teach all piano classes at the same time, Wiley’s students maintain that she is an expert at ensuring all levels of piano receive the support they need. 

“I feel like Ms. Wiley is really good at treating all of her students the same way, even though some may be majors, some may not be,”  sophomore technical theater major Dede Reagins said.

Reagins, who has taken piano the duration of her time at McCallum, isn’t the only student who appreciates the structure of Wiley’s class. 

Although senior Kate Talley, an orchestra major, originally wasn’t looking forward to Music Theory I, she grew to enjoy going to the class. Part of her excitement about the class was Wiley’s encouraging, positive personality. 

“Her personality is awesome, and I think that she had a very good approach to teaching piano,” Talley said. “It was just really fun. I liked learning all about music theory, and I liked that there was a cool balance between music theory and piano.”

Wiley doesn’t only balance music theory and piano for her students; she also balances two businesses outside of teaching, giving private piano lessons and running a crawfish truck, Pops Crawfish. Although Wiley didn’t intend to get involved in so many businesses, when she heard that her stepdad was looking to sell Pops Crawfish, she couldn’t bear to see the business go.

“In my family, everyone jokes that I don’t have a ‘no’ button,” Wiley said. “I can’t say no to anything.”

So, Wiley purchased Pops Crawfish from her stepdad and now runs the business with her stepmom and dad. Through introducing high-quality crawfish to the Austin food scene, Pops Crawfish has grown greatly. Now, they are the official crawfish provider of the University of Texas Athletics Department, providing a thousand pounds of crawfish every spring for the UT football team, and have plans to open a second location this coming spring. 

According to Wiley, Pops Crawfish also connects young families, aged crawfish lovers, and McCallum students alike through the social nature of crawfish boils.

“It’s a social event,” Wiley said. “So it’s about being with your friends and being with your family, and it takes a long time. You know, you hear people be like ‘it’s too much work for a little bit of food,’ but that’s part of it. It’s about camaraderie. It’s about spending time with friends and family over a meal.”

Another way Wiley interacts with her community is through coaching kickball. As a child, she grew up playing kickball at Northwest Austin Kickball (NWA) prior to her family’s move to Mississippi. Even today, she recalls the lasting influences her childhood coaches had on her life. Upon returning to Austin as an adult, she knew that she wanted to coach at NWA and provide a female role model and mentor to young women.

“I remember those coaches,” Wiley said. “I don’t have kids, so I remember the ones that were out there volunteering because they’d enjoyed the sport so much and the community that that sport had provided so much that they came back to give back, so that’s why I do it.” 

Although having to balance directing McCallum’s piano academy, running two businesses and coaching a kickball team may seem like a lot, Wiley feels that her jobs give her important skills that she might not learn through a single job.

“It gives me a little more open mindedness, understanding, empathy and sympathy,” Wiley said. “All of these things are what it takes to make you a more well-rounded person.”

According to Brown, Wiley has brought these skills to teaching at McCallum along with her flexibility, humor and kindness.

“Ms. Wiley is very witty,” Brown said. “She’s very creative, very funny. Even when I’m having a rough day, especially when I’m playing a piece and don’t have it, she’s always very understanding and is quick to make a joke and diffuse the situation of stress. I really appreciate how funny and kind and understanding she is.”