Kevin Kay

Kevin Kay (b. 1995) is a composer interested in the physicality of sound. He is furthermore interested in expressing the physical nature of our reality abstractly through music. Working in just intonation, his music is concerned with the structuring and understanding of rational tonal structures through framework based on the physical, mathematical, and psychoacoustic properties of sound. Accordingly, his work is informed by the sensation and perception of sound as a physical phenomenon. Through an obsession with patterns and numbers in music, such mathematically oriented harmonic spaces often become entangled with temporal processes.

Kevin’s music has been performed by ensembles and musicians such as Ensemble Linea, Spektral Quartet, Imani Winds, soloists from Ensemble intercontemporain, The Van Swietens, Divertimento Ensemble, Density512, PinkNoise Ensemble, Ghost Ensemble, The City of Tomorrow, MotoContrario Ensemble, and the Brouwer Trio, among others. As a clarinetist, he performs with Red Panel. Festivals and academies that have performed his music include: impuls Academy (2023), CIEL Academy (2023) the Cortona Sessions for New Music (2020 Cortona Prize winner, 2022, 2023), the International Workshop for Young Composers (2020), IRCAM’s ManiFeste Academy (2018-19), Les Ecoles d’Art Américaines de Fontainebleau (2018), New Music on the Point (2017), the Yarn/Wire Institute (2017), the NYC Electroacoustic Music Festival (2017), the Valencia International Performing Arts Summer Festival (2016), and the Charlotte New Music Festival (2016). Kevin has been in residence at Arts Letters and Numbers (2023) and the Hambidge Center for the Arts (2022).

Kevin resides in Berlin where he stayed following support from the DAAD-Stiftung (Respekt & Wertschätzung Scholarship) to pursue composition and artistic research at the Universität der Künste Berlin with Marc Sabat. He holds a Ph.D. in Music Composition from Stony Brook University, an M.A. in the humanities from the University of Chicago, and a B.S. in physics and music from the College of William and Mary. He has studied with Margaret Schedel, Sam Pluta, and Sophia Serghi, among others.