Kevin Kelly
An FM Host Who Also Conducts Orchestras
When Kevin Kelly discovers a musical piece and plays it on his WILL-FM classical music program (7-9 am weekdays), that same piece of music just might turn up in a future concert of Champaign-Urbana’s Prairie Ensemble.
That’s because Kevin is the founder and music director for the chamber orchestra. "It’s fun to discover music that I don’t know and introduce WILL-FM listeners to it," says Kevin. "And quite a few pieces that show up on Prairie Ensemble programs are pieces I’ve run across while working at WILL-FM."
In this and other ways, his jobs as WILL-FM music announcer and Prairie Ensemble conductor dovetail nicely, says Kevin.
Kevin began working at WILL-FM about six years ago, finding that he enjoyed the challenge of talking on the air to people he didn’t know. "I just try to come up with an image of who I’m talking to, and talk to the air as though the air is friendly," he says.
Several months later, in August 1996, the Prairie Ensemble gave its first concert. The 35-member group has just completed its third subscription season. "I’m amazed and thankful at how the community has supported us," says Kevin, who also conducts the East Central Illinois Youth Orchestra and is choirmaster at Emmanuel Memorial Episcopal Church.
Although Kevin has been playing music since first grade, his route to conducting was a circuitous one. He grew up in Chambersburg, Pa., where he took piano lessons from his mom and then played double bass. "I really wanted to play viola, but my mom had started a folk group at church and she already had a bass for me to play." He also played trumpet and then French horn. " I went to Northwestern to major in horn performance," says Kevin. "But I had a psychological battle with the horn and the horn won." He ended up majoring in music history and criticism, with a second major in English essay writing. "I thought I could be a music critic. But then I realized I like music for the making of it and listening to it. I’ve never figured out how to describe music in words."
He worked for seven years for a medical textbook publisher, staying active in music by singing with the Grant Park Symphony Chorus and the Chicago Symphony Chorus at Ravinia. But he felt music pulling him back. He took private conducting lessons and, in 1991, quit his job to come to the University of Illinois to get a master’s degree in conducting.
Although he stopped playing French horn, in part, because of his extreme performance anxiety, he says he’s never nervous while conducting. "It’s the one area of performing in which I don’t get nervous – that, and talking in front of other people." However, he says, conducting is a difficult profession unless you have "volumes of confidence, a fair amount of arrogance, quite a bit of talent and a whole lot of luck. I’m probably a bit deficient in all of those."
Yet, says Kevin, he loves his multi-faceted role in the musical life of the community. "Being on the air gives me a certain presence, as does my work with the Prairie Ensemble and other groups," he says. "They feed off of each other. I hope it’s evident that, in all these ways, I enjoy sharing music with others."
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