Kevin Zetina joined the ETSU faculty in 2026. He is a passionate performer, composer, and arranger devoted to contemporary music whether interpreting seminal works of the last century, premiering or composing brand new works, or arranging popular music for modern classical ensembles. Kevin previously served as Lecturer of Percussion at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where he co-directed the UT Percussion Ensemble, taught applied lessons, and contributed broadly to the College of Music. Under his mentorship, students have placed into top graduate programs and summer festivals and have performed with international performing ensembles such as the World Percussion Group. His students have also performed at the Midwest Clinic, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC), and throughout the Knoxville community. He is also a faculty member in percussion and composition at the Nief-Norf Summer Festival, and a regular performing member of the Nief-Norf ensemble.
Kevin’s artistic practice is centered on developing ground-breaking new music; performing these works as a soloist and with chamber ensemble; and highlighting these works through carefully curated performances, ensemble directorship, and teaching. He has collaborated with members of Sō Percussion, Eighth Blackbird, Ensemble Signal, the JACK Quartet, and the Bang on a Can All-Stars. Recent highlights include touring China with a percussion sextet of fellow Yale alumni, performing sold-out TEDx concerts featuring his composition Coalescence; publishing a new percussion quartet, sink; and premiering ten new solo and chamber recordings which garnered over 100,000 views. This past November, Kevin presented his new snare drum book Polyrhythms Through Pop Music at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention (PASIC).
As a composer, some of Kevin’s notable projects include Coalescence (2021), which was commissioned and premiered by the Yale Percussion Group and recently featured as the centerpiece of a TEDx event in Shenzhen, China; Fleeting Lines (2023), commissioned and premiered by The UT Percussion Ensemble; and shepard tone (2020) which he recently performed with internationally acclaimed pianist Vicky Chow. Most recently, Kevin published a book, Polyrhythms Through Pop Music (2024), which is an interdisciplinary collection of advanced snare drum solos and methodology that bridges the worlds of popular music, nested rhythm, and modern French-American rudimental drumming. In addition to composing, Kevin is a successful arranger whose work, which ranges from Animal Collective to Meshuggah, has reached hundreds of thousands of listeners worldwide. Most recently his arrangement of Electric Sunrise by prog-rock guitarist Plini was premiered by the UT Percussion Ensemble at their 2025 Midwest Clinic Showcase Concert. Kevin’s compositions are published through Liquidrum publishing.
Kevin earned his MM and MMA degrees from Yale University as a Havemeyer Scholarship recipient under Robert van Sice, and he holds a BM from the Eastman School of Music with the Howard Hanson Scholarship where he studied with Michael Burritt. He is a proud Pearl/Adams Concert Performing Artist and Vic Firth Educational Artist.