On Friday November 1st Isla Baring and Executive Director, James Hancock were invited to meet with the inaugural Tait Scholar, 21 year old Western Australian composer, Kevin Penkin at the Royal College of Music. Kevin began his studies at the RCM in September and has already impressed his teachers with his dedication and talent.
You can listen to samples of Kevin’s work here
B i o g r a p h y
Kevin Penkin is a British-Australian composer who composes for video games, film and the concert stage. He is starting a Masters Degree in Composition at the Royal College of Music in September, for which he has received a Scholarship from Tait Memorial Trust and is the inaugural Tait Scholar. Kevin is also supported by a Clifton Parker Award. He has also been awarded the Doctor Harold Schenberg music prize in music composition from the UWA School of Music.
Kevin debuted at the age of 18, collaborating on a Japanese video game with legendary Final Fantasy Series composer Nobuo Uematsu. The collaboration proved to be so successful, Kevin has now been in involved with Uematsu on 4 different video game projects. In 2011, Kevin wrote music for his first Indie Game “Defenders Quest”, which went on to earn over $500,000 in gross revenue.
Recently, it was announced that Kevin is part of a new JRPG Kickstarter, codenamed “Project Phoenix”, along with composers Nobuo Uematsu and Tomoki Miyoshi. The Kickstarter campaign achieved its goal of $100,000 in only 9 hours and is, even now, continues to be crowd funded.
In January 2013, Kevin was nominated for the Annual Game Music Awards held by Square Enix Music Online under the “Outstanding Achievement: Newcomer” category for his work on his debut project “Jyuzaengi Engetsu Sangokuden”.
As a composer of concert music, Penkin has been commissioned to write works for the Perth Symphony Orchestra, Perth Chamber Orchestra and the new music group Decibel. His work “Looking for Serenity” was premiered at the inaugural concert of the Perth Chamber Orchestra in the GPO building in April 2013.