Kevin James is a noted composer, performer, educator and writer.

 

Known for the breadth of his palette and original concepts, his music ranges from the gospel-inflected to the microtonal, from works for young singers to improv orchestras, with and without electronics, from the raucous to the sublime. 

 

Kevin’s newest projects include a multi-media work commissioned by Del Sol String Quartet that will feature the other worldly sounds of the howler monkeys of Nicaragua’s Ometepe Island. His Guerrilla Fanfare was commissioned as a headlining work for the 2015 MakeMusic NY festivities featuring the members of TILT Brass and Iktus Percussion. His Revolution #1, commissioned by a consortium of cellists, will be premiered in cities throughout the US in the coming year.

 

New York Times critics named the works of his Vanishing Languages Project among the “Best of 2013... as haunting as they were riveting”, The project received a feature story on the syndicated Public Radio International program, The World, and Chicago Classical included the first of the works among its “Top Ten Performances of 2011”.

 

Other recent premieres include Colors a work for American Public Media’s Radio Radiance series, premiered on a broadcast of it’s popular Celebrating Our Musical Future show, Revolution No. 11, commissioned by the International Beethoven Festival, and the critically acclaimed, 100 Waltzes for John Cage, premiered to rave reviews at the DiMenna Center in New York.

 

Kevin was a JAPAN-US Friendship Commission Fellow for 2009. He has received awards and grants from the American Composer's Forum, Jerome Foundation, NYSCA, NEA, NewMusicUSA and many others. Kevin’s Horobi No Naka Kara, commissioned by the Young People’s Chorus of New York City was previewed on WNYC radio and premiered in Hiroshima at a concert commemorating the 60th anniversary of the bombing. He has provided music for two film projects in collaboration with filmmaker Elise Kermani, which have been shown at festivals around the world. His cantata, Sadako, commissioned by the Chicago Humanities Festival was the focus of a University of Indiana residency and was premiered by Fulcrum Point New Music Project at Chicago’s Music Now Festival. NYC Play Ground, commissioned by YPC for their Transient Glory Series was premiered in a live broadcast on WNYC radio and chosen to represent the US at the World Choral Music Symposium in Kyoto Japan in 2005. In Complexu Pacis was a winner of the Essentially Choral competition and performed by the renowned VocalEssence. Mr. James' selection for the Meet The Composer/New Residencies Program in 1999 placed him in residence variously with The Kitchen, Quintet of the Americas, and Sirius String Quartet. It included the commission of The Portraits Project, a 90-minute multimedia "opera-lingua", for which Mr. James recorded over 700 interviews with homeless New Yorkers. Mr. James' music has also been performed on the Brooklyn Philharmonic's Music Off the Walls series, The Orchestra of St. Luke's Second Helpings Series, the North River Music Series at Greenwich House, the Oregon Bach Festival, and on symposia of the American Composers Forum, Chamber Music America and the Society of Composers Inc. national conferences. 

 

Kevin is an avid chess player, puzzler, cook, hockey and Yankees fan who thinks roller blades and a bicycle are the only ways to get around New York City.