Composer and pianist Martin Kennedy received his doctorate in composition from The Juilliard School where he studied with Samuel Adler and Milton Babbitt.  He holds a Bachelor's degree in both piano performance and a Master's degree in composition from Indiana University, where he studied with Don Freund, David Dzubay, Claude Baker, and Sydney Hodkinson.

Kennedy has received numerous awards including the BMI Student Composer Award, five ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards, the 1999 ASCAP Raymond Hubbel Award, and the Indiana University Dean's Prize in composition in both 1998 and 2002.  His compositions have been featured by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the Bloomington (IN) Camerata, the Haddonfield (NJ) Symphony, the Polish National Chamber Orchestra of Slupsk, the Shenandoah (VA) Symphony, and the Tuscaloosa Symphony among others.

An active pianist, he regularly performs with members of the Saint Louis Symphony.  He has also toured with violinist Lara St. John and with flutist Thomas Robertello, with whom he recorded Souvenir: Works by Fauré and Kennedy in 1999.

Kennedy's music is published by Theodore Presser Company.

REVIEWS

"Martin Kennedy's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra may be new, but its buoyant sound harkens back to the bold, sophisticated popular classical American music of the 1940s and 1950s. Kennedy's piece, which debuted Sunday afternoon by the Tuscaloosa Symphony Orchestra, has the audacity to be likeable, tuneful and utterly accessible.

The piece highlighted the final bill for the orchestra's 2007-08 season at the Concert Hall in the University of Alabama's Moody Music Building. The orchestra commissioned the work from Kennedy, an assistant professor of composition and theory at Washington University in St. Louis, in honor of Gloria Narramore Moody.

At the piano was Molly Morkoski, whose striking green gown matched the shimmering texture of the concerto she was playing. She combined with the orchestra, under the passionate baton of Shinik Hahm, to produce an invigorating sound that gave a clear, dynamic reading of the concerto. The third movement, in particular, combined emotional complexity with a sleekness that evoked the fascination and melancholy of urban life.

Morkoski and the percussion section stood out, especially in the final movement. Morkoski clearly relished performing the debut of a work that sent her hands scurrying up and down the keyboard. To me, the piece resounded with the atmosphere of America circa 1950 — jazzy, confident, sleek and grinning."

Richard Comte, The Tuscaloosa News ["Commissioned piece evokes music from America's past"]

"[Stephen] Gosling was even more powerful in Martin Kennedy's extravagantly written Theme and Variations [from his Piano Sonata].  Kennedy begins with a lazy theme that quickly swells to Lisztian proportions, requiring heroic keyboard prowess.  Its quiet ending, dappled with the faint sounds of an ambulance passing by outside, made Gosling's sweat and blood feel all the more tangible."

Bruce Hodges, MusicWeb International

"The final piece on the record is the Totentanz, written for piano and orchestra by Liszt and published in its final version in 1865. St. John's charming note on this transcription says she worked out the violin part while Kennedy reorchestrated the piece, and the result is most successful. While it has all of Liszt's short-attention-span style of compositional organization, it also has all of his razzle-dazzle, and the result is a violin showstopper with a very muscular orchestral part. It could be a nice addition to a solo violinist's repertoire, and St. John and Kennedy should be commended for fashioning it with intelligence and taste."

Greg Stepanich, The Palm Beach Post

". . . the violinist's adaptation of Liszt's "Totentanz" is the true center of this recording. Liszt was a virtuoso's virtuoso and his compositions were for the glory of only one: himself. But when one has talent to burn, that is okay. St. John and collaborator Martin Kennedy coax all of the Lisztian pathos from the master's dance of death. In the bargain, the two identify Liszt as an integral link between the great Beethoven and Wagner—in Liszt, those two geniuses shake hands."

C. Michael Baily, allaboutjazz.com

"The evening opened with the European premiere of an ambitious Sonata that the similarly-aged Martin Kennedy wrote specifically for [pianist Soheil] Nasseri. The Sonata is dense with a continuity of eloquence that flows naturally under Nasseri's agile, sensitive, and secure fingers." 

Pietro Misuraca, Giornale di Sicilia

"[Four Songs and Souvenir] are sure to become staples of the flute repertoire."

Flute Talk Magazine

"Flutist Thomas Robertello’s pairing of Souvenir by Martin Kennedy with the Fantaisie by Gabriel Fauré was heart-stoppingly beautiful.  Kennedy’s sound world is so closely related to Fauré that without peeking at the program, one would think his Souvenir was one of the myriad lovely French salon pieces — no wild technique, just simple beauty — but with an enchanting, fresh touch... I later picked up and devoured a CD of works by both Kennedy and Fauré recorded by Robertello and Kennedy, the composer and pianist." 

Gayle Williams, The Longboat Observer

"The unexpected in Friday's concert came courtesy of Martin Kennedy who received secondary billing in the printed program as pianist for [flutist Thomas] Robertello. His pianism didn't surprise... But young Kennedy, a cherubic presence on stage, emerged as a double threat man Friday as he sat at the Steinway to team with flutist Robertello in a performance, and a searing one, of his own composition, Four Songs for Flute and Piano. When I say that he has accepted vibes from a variety of sources, I do not mean to suggest he lacks his own voice. No, indeed. These pieces, which effectively make the flute an equivalent of the vocalist, have been beautifully constructed by someone with a musical mind of his own... Throughout, he has given both the pianist, in this case himself, and the flutist, the remarkable agile Robertello, various sorts of challenges that, nevertheless, at all times, serve the cause of music rather than mere technical exhibition. Both composition and performance impressed." 

Peter Jacobi, Bloomington Herald Times

"Both Gabriel Fauré's Fantasie and Martin Kennedy's Souvenir provoke precisely that sensation, contrasting the elegiac flute melody with the rhythmic pulse and color of the piano. Fauré's distinctive French style seems to have been the model for Kennedy's later exploration of very similar thematic material." 

Richard Storm, Sarasota Herald-Tribune

"[Salvatore Sciarrino's] one-movement Piano Trio No. 2 was surprisingly rich in contrasts.  Violinist Miranda Cuckson and cellist Jesus Castro-Balbi deftly kept their musical exchange to a whisper, unfazed by the suitably violent outbursts of pianist Martin Kennedy." 

The Strad