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kjos@kutztown.edu

Dr. Kevin Kjos is the Director of Instrumental Jazz Studies at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania where he directs Jazz Ensembles, Jazz Combos, and teaches Trumpet, Improvisation and Jazz History. Dr. Kjos has held prior appointments at Carleton College, the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire, and the University of Minnesota at Moorhead. He holds a Doctorate of Music in Brass Pedagogy from Indiana University, Bloomington and a Masters of Music in Trumpet Performance from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. He has studied jazz styles and techniques with renowned jazz educators David Baker, Robert Baca and Dominic Spera. His trumpet teachers include John Rommel, Robert Baca and esteemed brass pedagogue William Adam.

While at Kutztown University, Dr. Kjos has created the KU Jazz Festival, a large high school and college jazz festival featuring clinics, adjudications and master classes throughout the day by some of the best performers and educators from New York City and Philadelphia. He has also created the KU Jazz Masters Series, a clinician series that has featured some of the best jazz performers in the world including Randy Brecker, the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the Cyrus Chestnut Trio, Fred Sturm, Robert Baca, Michael Philip Mossman, and many others.

Dr. Kjos is very busy as a clinician/educator, presenting clinics and master classes throughout the Midwest and East Coast on Brass Pedagogy, Jazz Ensemble Techniques, Improvisation, and Jazz History for high school and junior high school students.

He is the author of Reflections on the Teaching of William Adam, a work analyzing the teaching methods and techniques of William Adam through interviews with Mr. Adam and research into techniques of pedagogy both non- academic and academic including ideas found in such seemingly divergent areas as eastern and western philosophy and athletics. He has developed a text for use in the trumpet studio at Kutztown University that covers the four principal areas of trumpet performance: production, classical styles, jazz styles, and commercial styles. In the jazz studies area he has compiled a book with CD of some of the most important jazz standards a budding jazz musician must know called Tunes You Need To Know, Vol. I He is currently writing a jazz pedagogy text for budding music educators that discusses the Large Ensemble, Improvisation, and the Jazz Combo in terms that High School and Junior High School educators not familiar with the jazz style.

As a leader, conductor and composer, Dr. Kjos was founder and director of the Minneapolis based Cedar Avenue Big Band and the Sound Exploration Ensemble, a new music group in which he performed and composed. He has also been awarded grants for both composition and recording from the West Bank School of Music in Minneapolis. As a trumpet player, Dr. Kjos has performed in a wide variety of styles from orchestral to rhythm and blues to jazz, performing with David Baker, the Camarata Chamber Orchestra, Ringling Brothers and Barnum Bailey Circus, Great Lakes Navy Band, the Dominic Spera Big Band, Harold Jones, Nick Schneider, and many others.