Testimonials

Composition

In critiquing my first string quartet, Fantasy on Icarus, Kieren spent the necessary time with my music to provide keen insights and offer a number of extremely helpful suggestions. My piece benefited enormously, and the feedback gave me food for thought with subsequent work as well. While it certainly isn’t standard practice for one established composer to offer up his music for critique by a colleague, I’m extremely glad I did — and I look forward to doing it again.
— Jeffrey Nytch, DMA

Kieren combines a great intelligence with a natural and palpable empathy for his students and their artistic endeavours. Alone among my teachers, he was able to quickly and remarkably sense “what I was going for” and to help me to “get it” in a more expressive, more communicative, and ultimately more musical way. His instruction does not impose, it elicits: Kieren’s prerogative seems to be to accept each student on his or her own terms and to cultivate and maximize their potential as unique artists and individuals. And in this he has succeeded, for in my short time under his instruction I learned more quickly and deeply than I had thought possible about myself as a musician and creative artist.
— Matt Forte, M.Mus.

Kieren creates a comfortable yet productive atmosphere in which his students feel both the freedom to explore creativity alongside the motivation to generate effective material. He brings a much-needed musical intimacy to the compositional learning environment that engenders trust. That trust is essential to fostering the creativity of the 21st century composition student.
— Ashlee Busch, M.Mus.