Kevin James: Director & Trombonist
Kevin James is a noted composer, performer, educator and writer. New commissions include a work for American Public Media’s Radio Radiance series, to be premiered on a national broadcast of it’s popular Performance Today show. Recent premieres include Revolution No. 11, commissioned by the International Beethoven Festival and the critically acclaimed, 100 Waltzes for John Cage. Kevin has received awards and grants from the American Composer's Forum, Jerome Foundation, NEA, Meet the Composer, New York State Council on the Arts, American Music Center and many others.
In 2009, Kevin was one of 5 American artists awarded a JAPAN-US Friendship Commission Fellowship to pursue work on his Vanishing Languages Project. Along with the Rome and Berlin Prizes, this is among America’s most sought after artist fellowships. Over the past several years, Kevin has traveled extensively, gathering field recordings of the last remaining speakers of four nearly extinct languages for use in a series of long form, electro-acoustic and multi-media works. This project will result in five new works developed on commissions from Elisa Monte Dance (NY), the string quartets ETHEL (NY) and Del Sol (SF), Fulcrum Point New Music Project (Chicago) and Speak Percussion (Australia). The work for Fulcrum Point (Jawoyn Dreamscape) was among Chicago Classical’s top ten performances of 2011. The remaining works will be premiered at residencies in New York and San Francisco in Spring of 2013.
Kevin’s Horobi No Naka Kara, commissioned by the Young People’s Chorus, was previewed on WNYC radio prior to delivery as a gift from New York City Mayor Bloomberg to Hiroshima Mayor, Tadatoshi Akiba and premiered at a Concert for Peace commemorating the 60th anniversary of the bombing. His first art film composing project (Jocasta, created and directed by Elise Kermani) has screened at festivals throughout the US and a second collaboration with Ms. Kermani is now in post-production. His cantata, Sadako: Prayers for Peace, commissioned by the Chicago Humanities Festival, was workshopped and performed at University of Indiana prior to being premiered by the Fulcrum Point New Music Project as part of the Music Now Festival at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and the Harris Theater. Kevin’s multi-media work NYC Play Ground, also commissioned by the Young People’s Chorus for their Transient Glory Series (premiered at the 92nd St. Y in a live broadcast on WNYC radio), was chosen to represent the US at the World Choral Music Symposium in Kyoto Japan in 2005. In Complexu Pacis received honors in the worldwide Waging Peace choral music competition and was a winner of the Essentially Choral competition where it was performed by the renowned VocalEssence.