KYLE ADAM BLAIR, pianist

KYLE ADAM BLAIR, D.M.A. is a pianist, music director, and vocal coach currently residing in San Diego, California. His major focuses include the performance of new works in collaboration with composers, and the performance of works from the art music and song repertory of the 20th and 21st centuries.

In addition to multiple concerts with Bang-On-A-Can All-Stars in Seattle and Los Angeles in the last decade, Blair’s most recent and memorable performances have included three world premieres: Stephen Lewis’ Radium Butterfly in Portland, Oregon, Bruno Ruviaro’s twelve Pos-Tudos piano etudes in San Francisco, and Stuart Saunders Smith’s Family Portraits: Sylvia at 70 in Hartford, Connecticut. 

Blair released his solo debut album in July 2019. Entitled Palm Sunday, the album features four premiere recordings of recent solo piano works composed by Stuart Saunders Smith, including the namesake title piece which Blair commissioned. He can also be heard on Edgetone Records, Another Timbre, and Open Space Publications, and has produced for two Bridge Records releases.

Beyond concert music, Blair’s passion for text and theatre often fosters collaborations with actors, singers, and dancers. As the Staff Pianist for the UC San Diego Department of Music, he has worked closely with Grammy-winning soprano Susan Narucki in the creation of contemporary operatic projects, most notably the premieres of Lei Liang’s Inheritance and Stephen Lewis’s Noon at Dusk.

Also currently a Lecturer in UC San Diego’s Department of Theatre and Dance, he has musically directed new musicals by Deborah Stein and Nadine George-Graves, composed music for plays written by graduate student playwrights, and played roles as an on-stage performer in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice, and Denis O’Hara/Lisa Paterson’s An Iliad.
 
Though multifaceted, Blair’s passions for music and performance simultaneously inhabit the realms of complexity, dissonance, and lyricism.