About
Kevin Nordstrom, DMA
Biography
Violist Dr. Kevin Nordstrom leads a busy career as a performer, teacher, and scholar. He is currently Lecturer of Viola at the University of Louisville and has served on the string faculties of Wright State University, and Earlham College. Dr. Nordstrom has performed across Canada, Mexico, Italy, Austria, China, and given numerous recitals throughout the United States, where he is also in demand as a masterclass clinician. Recent solo appearances include several recitals, and special performances of Alyssa Morris’s Puccini Fantasy for Viola and Piano, which was commissioned and written for him in 2021, Lilian Fuchs’s Sonata Pastorale, and Joan Tower’s Wild Purple. Dr. Nordstrom has recorded all three of these works for professional release within the next year, Wild Purple being recorded at the special request of the American Viola Society. As a chamber musician Dr. Nordstrom performs regularly with university colleagues and as violist of the Aurelian Trio, a string group he co-founded in 2019. In addition to live performance, he is committed to his online performance presence and regularly posts videos of his recitals on his Vimeo page, found here. Tied into this is his participation in the recent trend of online music competitions. In the past several years, Dr. Nordstrom has won awards for his video recordings of Wild Purple, Rachmaninoff's Cello Sonata arr. Viola, Bach's Third Suite for Solo Cello (Viola), and Ligeti's Viola Sonata.
Wearing his scholastic hat, Dr. Nordstrom often gives presentations and clinics at music conferences and publishes articles in string journals. As a member of the College Music Society (CMS), Dr. Nordstrom has discussed and given performances of works by György Ligeti, Charles Koechlin, Marion Bauer, Lillian Fuchs, Alyssa Morris, and Joan Tower at several of their regional and national conferences. Dedicated to advancing discourse on string music education, specifically for the violin and viola, he has presented clinics for the Texas, Pennsylvania, and Ohio Music Educators Associations and at several American String Teachers Association (ASTA) National Conferences, often in collaboration with his colleague and brother, Dr. Stephen Nordstrom. The brothers have worked closely on several articles published in the American String Teacher Journal. Other articles by Dr. Nordstrom alone have been published in the Journal of the American Viola Society (JAVS) including his analysis of Ligeti's viola sonata, as well as pedagogical studies on vibrato and advanced double-stopping. Additionally, he often evaluates new material for the viola, scores and recordings, to JAVS. Dr. Nordstrom has served on editorial boards for both the American String Teacher Journal and the Journal of the American Viola Society and was selected to be Program Chair for 2024 by the Great Lakes Regional Chapter of the College Music Society.
Prior to assuming his position at the University of Louisville, Dr. Nordstrom served as faculty at Earlham College, Indiana University East, Xavier University, and Miami University campuses. Additionally, Dr. Nordstrom is the creator/writer/producer of The Great Composers Podcast, found on iTunes (click here!) and across the web. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from The University of North Texas, and the degrees of Master of Music, Artist Diploma, and Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where his secondary studies were in music history. His teachers have included Dr. Catharine Carroll, Mr. Masao Kawasaki, Dr. Susan Dubois, and Dr. Kathryn Steely. He plays on a rare American viola from 1893 by Jerome Bonaparte Squier, the so-called “American Stradivari”, who made but a handful of violas, and bounces between various bows including ones crafted by Richard Grünke, Martin Devillers, and Jérôme Thibouville-Lamy.
Aside from all this, Dr. Nordstrom enjoys recreational studies in musicology and the history of violin and bow making, as well as composing and arranging: his arrangement of Bizet’s Carmen Suite no. 1 for viola quartet can be had through Alfred Music. His non-musical life often sees him reading volumes on American and ancient history, golfing (probably too often), and spending time with his wife and two daughters.