Dr. Kevin Krentz

Kevin Krentz is a native of Atlanta, Georgia. He enjoys a varied career as performer, inventor, Artistic Director and teacher.

Learning to play primarily as adult, starting cello in college after not playing in high school, he has developed a unique perspective and has built a uniquely varied career as performer, recording artist, inventor, teacher, entrepreneur, and arts leader.

In 2000 Kevin was a winner at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, with his clarinet, piano, and cello trio, In Flight 3. He then formed a piano trio, Finisterra Trio, which won the Silver Medal at the Zinetti International Chamber Music Competition in Verona, Italy and Greenlake National Chamber Music Competition where they also won the Audience Prize. Finisterra went on to perform throughout the US, Italy, and the UK and were Artists-In-Residence at both the Phoenix Series in New York City, NY as well as the Seasons Hall in Yakima, WA. Finisterra Trio recorded all four of Daron Hagen’s Piano Trios for the Naxos label for an album NPR hailed as one of the top 5 classical recordings of 2010. In 2006, Finisterra was invited to perform and stay in London for extensive collaboration with the famed Florestan Trio.

Kevin is very active as a recording studio session player in Seattle where he can be heard on many major films, as well as commercials, some of the most popular video games including Halo and Destiny, and CD’s from Dave Matthews Band to Evanescence. Recently, Kevin performed the cello solos for the world’s largest video game by revenue and number of players, Honor of Kings by Tencent, the Chinese software company. Kevin can also be heard as the solo cellist on the movie, Bordertown starring Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas. Sought after for his ability to improvise his own parts, Kevin has lent his talents to countless other projects as well.

Since 2007, Kevin has been Artistic Director of the Methow Valley Chamber Music Festival which invites some of the finest artists in the US to perform together for two weeks. With his unique perspective, Dr. Krentz created Krentz String Works which sells his inventions worldwide in 2013. The most well-known, the Krentz Modulator, is used in nearly every major symphony in the world for its ability to stop annoying wolf tones. A motivated teacher, Dr. Krentz, has done extensive research into evidence-based cello technique and teaching methods and his students have won many awards and opportunities. Dr. Krentz also taught at Seattle University from 2012-2017.