Dr. Kevin Nordstrom leads a busy career as a performer, teacher, and scholar. He has performed in Canada, Mexico, Italy, Austria, China, and given numerous recitals throughout the United States. In addition to live performance, Dr. Nordstrom is committed to his online performance presence and regularly posts videos of his recitals on his Vimeo page (click here!). Tied into this is his participation in the recent trend of online music competitions. In the past several years, Dr. Nordstrom has won awards for his video recordings of Wild Purple by Joan Tower, Rachmaninoff's Cello Sonata arr. Viola, Bach's Third Suite for Solo Cello (Viola), and Ligeti's Viola Sonata. As a chamber musician Dr. Nordstrom performs regularly with university colleagues and as violist of the Aurelian Trio, a string group he co-founded in 2019.

Wearing his scholastic hat, Dr. Nordstrom often gives presentations and clinics at music conferences and writes articles for string journals. As a member of the College Music Society, Dr. Nordstrom has discussed and given performances of works by György Ligeti, Charles Koechlin, and Marion Bauer at several of their conferences. Dedicated to advancing discourse on string music education, specifically for the violin and viola, he has presented clinics for the Texas, Pennsylvania, and Ohio Music Educators Associations and at the American String Teachers Association National Conference, often in collaboration with his colleague and brother, Dr. Stephen Nordstrom. The brothers have worked closely on several articles published in the American String Teacher Journal. Other articles by Dr. Nordstrom alone have been published in the Journal of the American Viola Society including his analysis of Ligeti's viola sonata, as well as pedagogical studies on vibrato and advanced double-stopping. Dr. Nordstrom has served on editorial boards for both the American String Teacher Journal and the Journal of the American Viola Society.

Dr. Nordstrom is currently Lecturer of Viola at the University of Louisville and viola instructor at Wright State University. He has also served on the faculties of Earlham College, Indiana University East, Xavier University, and Miami University Hamilton. Additionally, Dr. Nordstrom is the creator/writer/producer of The Great Composers Podcast, found on iTunes (click here!) and across the web. He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from The University of North Texas, and the degrees of Master of Music, Artist Diploma, and Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music where his secondary studies were in music history. His teachers have included Dr. Catharine Carroll, Mr. Masao Kawasaki, Dr. Susan Dubois, and Dr. Kathryn Steely. He plays on a rare American viola from 1893 by Jerome Bonaparte Squier, the so-called “American Stradivari”, who made but a handful of violas, and bounces between various bows including ones crafted by Richard Grünke, Martin Devillers, and Jérôme Thibouville-Lamy.

Aside from all this, Dr. Nordstrom enjoys recreational studies in musicology and the history of violin and bow making, as well as composing and arranging. His non-musical life often sees him reading volumes on American and ancient history, golfing (probably too often), and spending time with his wife and two daughters.