Bryan Kennard

BIO

Award-winning composer, flutist, and Cleveland native Bryan Kennard is in demand as a writer and performer. Bryan has written extensively for big band, and arranged for studio orchestra for performances with Maria Schneider, Donny McCaslin, Kate Reid, Ann Hampton Callaway, and Kirk Whalum. He is regularly commissioned to write for a variety of classical and jazz ensembles. He has presented his music in master classes with jazz composers Billy Childs, Darcy James Argue, Vince Mendoza, Mike Holober, and Remy Le Boeuf at the International Society for Jazz Arrangers and Composers Symposia, and he has worked privately and in workshops with renowned composers and arrangers including Gary Lindsay, John Daversa, Stephen Guerra, Christine Jensen, John Mills, Dave Morgan, and Maria Schneider.

Bryan has performed regularly throughout the Northeast Ohio region. He is a founding member and co-leader of the Third Law Collective, a composer ensemble dedicated to performing new music by Northeast Ohio writers. He has performed and shared his music at the Montreux and North Sea Jazz Festivals, the Jazz Educators Network Conference, the National Flute Association Convention, the International Double Reed Society Convention, and the Texas Music Educators Association Convention. He was a Young Composer Showcase selectee at the 2019 JEN Conference, and received multiple Downbeat Student Music Awards for performance, composition, arranging, and engineering. Bryan has served on faculty at Oberlin Conservatory and Youngstown State University teaching courses in composition, music theory, jazz history and related courses. Since 2022, he has served as the Director at the Bop Stop at The Music Settlement, Cleveland’s premiere jazz and listening room, where he curates the music calendar and manages the venue.

Bryan received his doctoral degree in Jazz Composition from the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music where he served as a Teaching Assistant for the Studio Music and Jazz department as well as Coordinator / Composition Fellow for the Henry Mancini Institute. He earned a master’s in Jazz Composition from the University of Texas at Austin, a master’s in Flute Performance from Youngstown State University, and bachelor’s degree in music from Mercyhurst University.