Kimberly McCord is professor emeritus of music education at Illinois State University where she taught general music methods and special music education. she led the Figurenotes rock band for teenagers and adults with disabilities and the OrffCats, a jazz Orff group for ISU Laboratory School students ages 10-14. The OrffCats were featured performers at the American Orff Schulwerk Association Conference, The American Jazz Museum, The Memphis Public Schools Orff Festival, and the Jazz Education Network Conference. OrffCat members have gone on to win Downbeat Student Awards and other music-related honors. She was an International Society for Music Education (ISME) Board member, founder and first chair of the Jazz Special Interest Group,and is the past chair of the ISME Commission on Music in Special Education, Music Therapy and Music Medicine. She founded and was the first chair of the National Association for Music Education Special Research Interest Group on Children with Exceptionalities. McCord’s books include Chop Monster, Jr., a jazz vocabulary for elementary general music, Accessing Music, (Alfred Music) Exceptional Music Pedagogy for Children with Exceptionalities with Deborah VanderLinde, Teaching the Postsecondary Music Student with Disabilities, (Oxford University Press) and many book chapters and articles. She has taught Jazz Orff masterclasses at the University of Kentucky and the Orff Institute in Salzburg, Austria. She has been the recipient of many research grants including the MacArthur Foundation and VSA The Kennedy Center.