UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Creative Practice
Dr Kevin Leomo is a Scottish-Filipino composer of experimental music based in Glasgow. Kevin is interested in silence, fragility, perception, improvisation, collaboration, approaches to listening, and non-standard notation. He is also interested in exploring notions of cross-cultural composition. Kevin completed a practice-research PhD in experimental music composition at the University of Glasgow with Drew Hammond.
Kevin’s works have been performed internationally by Red Note Ensemble, Psappha Ensemble, Machair Duo, Trio Abstrakt, Jasdeep Singh Degun, Christopher Adler, Ruth Morley, Adriana Minu, Ensemble Okeanos, Ensemble Móbile, Neave Trio, Society for New Korean Music, TaiHei Ensemble, Glasgow CoMA, Glasgow New Music Expedition, Tacet(i) Ensemble, The Hermes Experiment, and Quartetto Maurice.
Kevin’s music has been performed at Sound Festival, KLANGRAUM, impuls Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, Bienal Música Hoje, Oak Bay New Music Festival, New Music Gathering, Thai New Music and Arts Symposium, The University of Glasgow, Being Human Festival, Scottish Music Centre, ARCadia, Glasgow Experimental Music Series, Sound Thought, and played on BBC Radio 3.
His works have been featured on: Landscape Traces: New Music for Khaen, ISCM Virtual Collaboration Series, The Center for Deep Listening’s Year of Deep Listening, PRXLUDES, make:good, and the 4M Net Label. He has created soundscape and installation works for The Dear Green Bothy and Glasgow Science Festival. Kevin has performed at Glasgow Experimental Music Series, Sound Thought, 1.5 Months, GLE4M, and KLANGRAUM. He’s released an album, Lo-fi experimental beats to disassociate and relax to, with Simon Hellewell as the experimental ambient duo Dronehopper.
He has presented his practice research at: RMA Music and/as Process Conference, Science Humanities Arts Research Exchange Residency, Education Evolved, British Forum for Ethnomusicology and Royal Musical Association Research Students’ Conference, Music and Intercultural Practice Symposium, Sound Thought, Debussy in 2018: A Centenary Celebration, Advanced Research Centre Practice Research Symposium, University of Glasgow College of Arts Postgraduate Conference, Glasgow Science Festival, and Explorathon (European Researchers’ Night).
Kevin has participated in composition courses such as: impuls Academy, International Composition Institute Thailand, Atlas Lab at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, International Percussion Institute Sound Lab, Irish Composition Summer School, OBF Composers Symposium, Longy School of Music Divergent Studio, and Psappha Ensemble’s Composing for Flute and Sitar schemes. He participated in Wandelweiser’s Composers Meet Composers 2022 with Antoine Beuger, Emmanuelle Waeckerle, Eva-Maria Houben, Sabine Schall, and Joep Dorren.
Kevin is currently developing PROJECT SOMNOLENCE with Maria Sledmere, exploring dream writing and the sonic ecologies of sleep.
Kevin represented Scotland at Nordic Music Days as part of a delegation to Reykjavik in October 2022. He was shortlisted by the Scottish Section of the International Society of Contemporary Music to represent Scotland at the ISCM World Music Days 2023.
Teaching
Kevin worked as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Glasgow from 2017 to 2023, teaching on Music courses including Composition; Orchestration; Composition in the Classroom, Practical Instrumentation, Scoring, and Musicianship; and Musical Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century. Kevin also taught Introduction to Creative Practice on the new Creative Arts & Industries programme, as well as on the Creative Industries & Cultural Policy MSc.
Kevin is interested in music education and has participated in projects at both primary and secondary school level. Kevin is interested in decolonising music curricula within higher education. He is a member of the Collaborative Cluster ‘Decolonising Higher Education in the Time of Pandemic’ and advocated for decolonising during his role as Postgraduate Convenor for the College of Arts on the University of Glasgow’s Students’ Representative Council, which he held for two years.
Kevin has worked with Sound Festival as assistant composer on the Go Compose programme (2019 and 2020) as well as delivering workshops on Sibelius notation software as part of Get Composing!. Kevin also participated in Chamber Music Scotland’s Train and Sustain 2018 programme, where he worked with Fauna String Quartet to implement a composition education project at Penicuik High School in Midlothian.
During his master’s, Kevin worked closely with Dr. Jane Stanley to implement a composition mentoring scheme that involved students from Glasgow secondary schools who were provided tuition on a regular basis. This programme has since become the Scottish Young Composers Project, where he works as co-director. Kevin works as a graduate teaching assistant at the University of Glasgow for the courses Composition in the Classroom and Orchestration.
He has presented research in music education at events including: Scottish Association for Music Education 23rd Conference, University of Glasgow 12th Annual Learning and Teaching Conference, and Sound Thought 2019.
Sound thought
Since 2015, Kevin has been the key driving force behind Sound Thought, a series of experimental music and sound devoted to promoting the practice and research of postgraduates, recent graduates, and emerging practitioners.
Sound Thought has partnered with a number of Scottish arts organizations to host concerts and experiences around Glasgow, including the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow Electronic and Audiovisual Media Festival, Glasgow New Music Expedition, Glasgow Science Festival, Being Human Festival, Explorathon, The Glad Cafe, and The Old Hairdresser’s.
essential blends
Kevin is co-host of Essential Blends, a practice-research podcast he runs with Adriana Minu. They interview artists and researchers about their journeys, uncovering possibilities of practice.