Biography
Kyle Simpson, composer, trumpet player, conductor, and bandleader is an artist that has been creating music for over a decade in both contemporary and film music genres. His contemporary music has been performed by professional groups such as Unheard-of//Ensemble, Hypercube, and the Janáček Philharmonic. Additionally, his music has been featured in many festivals throughout Europe and The United States including Italy, Greece, France, Czech Republic, and Malaysia. As an instrumentalist, he toured with the Glenn Miller Orchestra in 2007. His album of original big band music was released in 2016, and Pittsburgh City Pages reviewed it by saying, “[the music settings] reveal a rich harmonic sense that recalls Gil Evans' adventurous work." Recently, in 2021, he was awarded recognition from the American Prize in Composition for his live, orchestral performance, of film scores to the classic silent films of Georges Méliès, including Kingdom of the Fairies and Trip to the Moon, which featured premieres at the DiMenna Center in New York City as well as Carnegie Free Library in Pittsburgh, PA. In 2012 He received an ASCAP award for his scoring work at the NYU/ASCAP Film Scoring Workshop. He has scored numerous feature-length films, video games, and short films including his most recent film score to Thomas Zoeschg’s feature film Every Night and Every Day (Black Deer Productions). Before his appointment to CSUN, Simpson was an Associate Professor of Music at Washington & Jefferson College in Washington, PA, and then an Assistant Professor of Music Composition at West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV. He holds degrees from Lawrence University (B.M.), University of Montana (M.M.), and West Virginia University (D.M.A.).