Anne Kilstofte, East High graduate in 1973, earned her Bachelor of Science degree in music and media from the University of Colorado - Denver in 1979 and her Masters in Music from the University of Colorado - Boulder in 1988. In 1995, she received a Ph.D. in music theory and composition from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Kilstofte has written four doctoral dissertations, two in the U.S., one in Germany, and one in France.

Dr. Kilstofte was a Fulbright Scholar in 2004 at the Estonia Academy of Music, Tallinn Academy, and held a number of other fellowships. She also served as a visiting professor at Sweden's Royal Academy of Music in 1993 and the University of Oldenburg, Germany in 2005.

From 2006 to 2008, she was president of the International Alliance for Women in Music, an internation organization for scholars, composers, musicologists, and performers interested in the performance and study of women's music. Her works have been performed in Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America.