As a performer, Kevin is a percussionist with multitudes of experience in contemporary music. Having grown up playing guitar in metal bands, Kevin’s work aims to bridge the gap between the classical and popular mediums. In this effort to push experimentation in classical 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. Kevin has played frequently with the Austin based contemporary chamber music group, Density 512. Currently he champions a diverse array of contemporary music through his direction of the University of Tennessee Percussion Ensemble.
As a composer, Kevin blends his background in 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 ‘Polyrhythms Through Pop Music’, a book of snare drum solos each scored to a song from various popular genres, and Coalescence (2021), a piece for percussion sextet commissioned by the Yale Percussion Group.
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 popular music for classical settings. He has performed with members of Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble Signal, the JACK Quartet, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars.
Currently, Kevin is the Lecturer in Percussion at the Natalie L. Haslam College of Music at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. 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. Kevin’s music is published through Liquidrum, and he is a proud Pearl/Adams concert performing artist.
As an educator, Kevin currently serves as Lecturer of Percussion at the University of Tennessee’s Natalie L. Haslam College of Music, where he teaches applied lessons, percussion methods, studio class, and directs the UT Percussion Ensemble. Outside of collegiate teaching he has worked 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. Kevin has also worked with high school students in Texas as a Marching Percussion Instructor and has guided many young percussionists as a private lesson teacher throughout the Round Rock/Leander area. While there, he coached the Walsh MS Honor Band as they were invited to perform at the Midwest Clinic.
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
