Kevin Zetina is a passionate performer, composer, and arranger of all things contemporary whether it be performing seminal works of the last century, premiering or writing brand new works, or arranging heavy metal music for contemporary classical ensembles. He has performed with members of Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble Signal, the JACK Quartet, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Kevin holds a BM from the Eastman School of Music with the Howard Hanson Scholarship where he studied with Michael Burritt, and he earned his MM and MMA degrees from Yale University as a Havemeyer Scholarship recipient under Robert van Sice.
As a performer, Kevin is a percussionist with multitudes of experience in contemporary music. Having grown up as a guitarist focused on various sorts of death metal, Kevin has always been drawn to music that is experimental in nature. In this effort to push experimentation in music Kevin started the first student-run new music ensemble at the Yale School of Music: Versicolor. The group champions composers who would otherwise be underrepresented and provides a space for contemporary music at Yale. Currently, Kevin is an active member of the Austin based contemporary chamber music group, Density 512
As a composer, Kevin tries to blend his background in both contemporary western art music and popular music to create something that is both unique yet accessible to audiences from either background. His most recent projects include Coalescence (2021), a piece for mallet quartet & piano commissioned by the Yale Percussion Group, and shepard tone (2020), a piece for Vibraphone & Piano which was premiered at the Manhattan School of Music.
As an educator, Kevin works with students at all levels on instruments including drum-set, percussion, guitar, and piano. He has taught private percussion lessons for undergraduate students at Yale College and high school students at the Cheshire Academy, a private college preparatory boarding school in Connecticut. His students at Yale College, all of whom were non-music majors, have excelled comparably to conservatory students through winning spots at summer music festivals as well as the College Band Director's National Association's Intercollegiate Band. Prior to Yale, Kevin worked with high school students in Texas as a Marching Percussion Instructor as well as a private lesson teacher for guitar, drum-set, and percussion. Kevin is now based in Austin, Texas, where he teaches a private studio of about fifty young percussionists.
As an orchestral musician, Kevin has worked in groups such as the Central Texas Philharmonic, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the New Haven Chamber Orchestra, the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra, Yale Philharmonia, and the Greece and Irondequoit chamber orchestras in upstate New York. He has played under conductors including Peter Oundjian, Carolyn Kuan, Jean Mari-Zeitouni, Ludovic Morlot, Neil Varon, and Brad Lubman
Education
2020 - 2021
Yale University, MMA
2018 - 2020
Yale University, MM
2014 - 2018
Eastman School of Music, BM
Original works
2021
Coalescence, mallet quartet & piano
2020
shepard tone, piano & vibraphone duo
2020
Gleaming, multi-percussion solo
2019
Fleeting Lines, piano solo
2019
Sink, quartet for vibraphone, drumset, percussion, & piano
2019
Shimmer, piano & percussion duo
2018
Floating Lines, vibraphone duo
2018
Catalyst, solo vibraphone and live electronics
2016
March, 6-channel fixed electronics
2015
Elastic Feels, multi-percussion solo
Teaching
2019 - 2021
2019 - 2021
2014 - 2016
Yale College, Secondary Lesson Teacher
Cheshire Academy, Chair of Percussion Studies
Winston Churchill High School, Marching Percussion Instructor
Arranged works
2021
Blotted Science-Ingesting Blattaria, percussion sextet
2020
Meshuggah-Bleed, electric guitar & percussion sextet
2019
John Adams-Hallelujah Junction, mallet quartet
2018
Animal Collective-My Girls, piano & percussion trio
2018
The Contortionist-Language, piano & percussion trio
2017
Animal Collective-Alvin Row, piano, sop saxophone, & percussion quintet
2016
Meshuggah-Dancers to a Discordant System, percussion sextet
2016
Scale The Summit-Black Hills, percussion trio
2016
Adult Jazz-Dayhole, percussion quartet
2015
Antoine Dufour-These Moments, percussion trio
2021 - present
Walsh MS, Wiley MS, Pearson Ranch MS, Private Lesson Teacher