Kenneth Trotter is a violinist from Knoxville, Tennessee. He received a Bachelor of Music from SUNY Purchase where he studied with Laurie Smukler and Carmit Zori. Kenneth was a founding member of the Puck Quartet: a passionate, playful ensemble of close friends. The quartet’s principal mentors included Julia Lichten, David Geber, and Deborah Buck. They received coaching from and worked closely with members of the Saint Lawrence, Juilliard, Orion, Belcea, Tokyo, American, and Brentano String Quartets.
The quartet’s activities included the premiere of Jason Eckardt’s Ascension, participating in the Mannes Beethoven Institute, Robert Mann String Quartet Institute, Emerging Artist Series at Garth Newell, and concerts at the Rhinebeck Chamber Music Society. Puck also gave the New York premiere of Stephen Prutsman’s score to the iconic silent film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in a sold-out performance at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.
Kenneth was among the first-year participants of the Decoda Chamber Music Festival, where he was exposed to the concepts of Interactive Performance. These skills were developed further as a teaching artist at the Manchester Music Festival Young Artist’s Program, at the Carnegie Hall Audience Engagement Institute, and the St. Lawrence Emerging Quartet Program, where Kenneth and the quartet presented performances at the International Showcase in Bing Hall at Stanford University, community concerts in assisted living facilities, and for those in hospice care. This direct contact with community ignited a passion for serving more diverse audiences, and the opportunity came with an invitation to Our Joyful Noise Baltimore’s ‘Azure’ Concert series, which, in collaboration with violist Maria Lambros, presented sensory-friendly concerts for people with autism and their families, as well as traveling to and playing directly for homeless veterans facing addiction at Baltimore Station and incarcerated women at the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women.
After the Puck Quartet’s dissolution, Kenneth and former Puck member Lily Holgate went on to join the Sawyer Quartet, another community-focused ensemble that gave concerts at St. Columba’s Church in Middletown, Rhode Island. Kenneth also traveled to Iowa City for a residency with Sawyer that included Family Night at the Iowa City Public Library, Stories in the Park-–a fully-voiced and acted musical retelling of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin, with Kenneth cast as the eponymous goblin—and performances at the Caring Hands day home and the Mayor’s Youth Empowerment Program for those with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
As an endlessly curious musician with the belief that almost all music can be considered chamber music, Kenneth has expanded his musical activities into many genres. He has taken part in a collaboration with the former principal dancer of the New York City Ballet, Wendy Whelan, at the Joyce Theater, and acted as concertmaster of Camerata New York Orchestra at the Mannes Sounds Festival’s presentation of Gluck’s opera Orpheus and Eurydice. Kenneth was a founding member and fiddle player of folk-foursome Elijah and the Moon, and has recorded and performed live with such diverse artists as R&B/disco legend Patrick Adams, Japanese rapper Lotus Juice, and singer-songwriter Mitski.
