About Me

Kevin Leysath II (b. 2001) is a composer, saxophonist and conductor from Rochester, NY where he has been immersed in music his whole life. Kevin concluded his undergraduate studies in Music Composition at the Nazareth College School of Music in Spring 2023 and is now pursuing a master’s degree in Film and Television scoring at NYU Steinhardt. Alongside composing chamber and concert music, Kevin collaborates with filmmakers from the Rochester Institute of Technology and Ithaca College, bringing their films to life with vivid musical scores. Whether he is composing for the stage or the screen, his melodic style reflects a love of film music, whose captivating and heartfelt themes express a range of emotion from sorrow to joy.

 

Kevin’s works have been performed and recorded by Nazareth College Saxophone Society, the Mcduffie Center for Strings student quartet, the Central High School String Orchestra in Macon, GA, the mdi ensemble in Milan, Italy and the Irondequoit String Orchestra under the direction of Evan Meccarello. As the winner of the 2022 MLK Award for Creative Expression, Kevin enjoys writing programmatic music that pays tribute to historic figures of African descent such as Maya Angelou and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. His composition training throughout the years has been led by composers Octavio Vazquez, Diana Rosenblum, Alison Plante and Clint Bajakan. Kevin is also a member of the Millennium Composers Initiative (MCI), figureheaded by composers Josh Trentadue and Kevin Day. In April of 2023 Kevin was awarded the Nazareth College School of Music Instrumental Conducting award and the Music Composition award.