Kevin Metzger is an accomplished guitarist and multi-instrumentalist flying down the road through broad plains of fusion. On this journey, he expertly erects power lines strung to pillars of combusting jazz, meticulous progressive and psychedelic rock, honest Baroque era classical, and popular American folk songs. Flip the fuse and listen to it power up.

A playful mind, a musician’s artist; his music is built upon high level composition, deep reliance on improvisation, and paramount performance moments. His forthcoming debut record, ‘Many Worlds’, in collaboration with Nashville based producer and composer R. Aaron Walters (playing both piano and drums) and set in jazz-trio instrumentation is powerful, emotive, important. A recipient of the City of Austin’s 2023 Live Music Grant he presented an innovative live-album recording, entitled ‘The Bachian Swing Consort’, blending the traditions of Bach and improvisational music over two nights in January 2024 with Rashaan Allwood, R. Aaron Walters, Page Stephens, and Rebekah Smelzer-Staley. His contemporary-improvisation duo with electric-guitarist and composer Jared Davis, The Atonal Guitar Duo, has been recent guest lecturers/artists at Texas State University, and will record an album of original compositions in 2024 coinciding with a live-streamed taping with San Antonio’s URBAN-15 .

Kevin was born and raised in Syracuse, NY and was exposed to live and improvised music by his parents before he was even out of the womb, leading to an upbringing that would foster a deep love and appreciation for art and music. By age 14 he was already writing and performing his own original music in venues in the greater Central New York area with his progressive-rock band Lee Terrace, and he has never given up that drive to perform and write.

Currently based and residing in Austin, TX, Kevin is an active performer and educator. With original projects and a robust private teaching studio, Kevin keeps busy at work as a sideman and session-player on both guitar and keyboards with artists ranging from Daniel Fears to Jack Greenwood, and provides guitar most Sundays as an employee of Triumphant Love Lutheran Church. Though he finds himself consistently busy and ready for the next musical moment, he can also be found on the occasional basketball court or hiking trail.

Kevin holds both a Master of Music degree in Guitar Performance from the New England Conservatory, where he studied with both Eliot Fisk and Dr. Jerome Mouffe, as well as a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Performance from Syracuse University, where he studied with Dr. Kenneth Meyer.

Images shot by Chelsea Berchon