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Kevin Day

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Kevin Day

Biography

Kevin Day (b.1996, Charleston, W. Va.) is a composer, conductor, producer and multi-instrumentalist from Arlington, Texas.

Day's father was a prominent hip-hop producer in the late 1980s, and his mother was a sought-after gospel singer, singing alongside the likes of Mel Tormé and Kirk Franklin. Kevin Day plays euphonium and tuba, and is a self-taught pianist and composer. He received a Bachelor of Music degree in euphonium/tuba performance from Texas Christian University (TCU), studying under Richard Murrow for tuba and euphonium and Dr. Neil Anderson-Himmelspach and and Till MacIvor Meyn for composition. He holds a Master of Music in Composition from the University of Georgia, studying with composers Peter Van Zandt Lane and Emily Koh, and conductor Cynthia Johnston Turner.

While at TCU, Mr. Day played in the marching band, the tuba/euphonium ensemble, and was the principal player on euphonium and jazz piano. Kevin was the first composer at TCU to receive a band composition premiered in concert his freshman year by the TCU Symphonic Band, and the Wind Symphony his sophomore year. Mr. Day has also received accolades such as his Fireworks fanfare being selected as a winner of the Dallas Winds Fanfare Contest for 2015-2016. He was a finalist for the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award for his work String Quartet No. 1, and the Novus New Music Call for Scores Contest for his concert band piece, Dancing Fire, for 2016. Mr. Day had his first ever conference premiere of Dancing Fire by the West Salem High School Wind Ensemble under the direction of Todd Zimbelman at the 2016 Western International Band Clinic in Seattle, Washington. He was also selected as the 3rd Prize winner of the 2020 New Classics International Young Composer Contest of the Moscow Conservatory. Kevin was also one of two tubas in the United States to play in the 2016 Disneyland All-American College Band for the summer.

Day, whose music often intersects between the worlds of jazz, minimalism, Latin music, fusion, and contemporary classical idioms, has more than 150 compositions. A winner of the BMI Student Composer Award and other honors, his works have had numerous performances throughout the United States, Russia, Austria, Australia, Taiwan, South Africa, and Japan. His works have been programmed by the Boston Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, and more. Day has collaborated with the likes of Steven Cohen, Jens Lindemann, Demondrae Thurman, and Jeremy Lewis on concertos for their respective instruments, as well as chamber ensembles like Ensemble Dal Niente, The Puerto Rican Trombone Ensemble, The Zenith Saxophone Quartet, The Tesla Quartet, and many more. He has worked with and has been mentored by distinguished composers Gabriela Lena Frank, Frank Ticheli, John Mackey, William Owens, Julie Giroux, Marcos Balter, Anthony Cheung, Matthew Evan Taylor, and Valerie Coleman.

Day currently serves as the vice president for the Millennium Composers Initiative and is an alumnus of Kappa Kappa Psi National Honorary Band Fraternity and Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia Fraternity of America. He is the composer-in-residence for the Mesquite Symphony Orchestra in Mesquite, Texas, for their 2019-2021 seasons, and is currently [2022] assistant professor of composition at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

Mr. Day began studies for his DMA at the University of Miami (Fla.) in the fall of 2021.


Works for Winds

Adaptable Music


All Wind Works


Resources

  • The Horizon Leans Forward…, compiled and edited by Erik Kar Jun Leung, GIA Publications, 2021, p. 309.
  • Kevin Day, personal correspondence, January 2021
  • Kevin Day website Accessed 2 November 2016
  • Knopps, Amy M. "Havana." In Teaching Music through Performance in Band. Volume 12, Compiled and edited by Andrew Trachsel, 773-785. Chicago: GIA Publications, 2021.
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