About

Tyler Kline (b. 1991; he/him/his) is a composer, audio engineer, and radio broadcaster whose work is deeply influenced by the ideals of Wabi-Sabi, a Japanese aesthetic and worldview that values transience, imperfection, and impermanence. This manifests in Tyler’s music in a variety of ways: the use of extended sounds/techniques in order to obscure musical textures; rhythmic dissonance that disconnects melodic and harmonic lines from the overall pulse; and fleeting gestures that evoke the natural world.

Recent compositions have included Orchard (2018), a collection of 50 short solo piano character studies based on various botanical fruit; West of the Sun (2019), an orchestra work inspired by the writing of Haruki Murakami; various chamber works for solo clarinet (liveoak, 2020), violin and piano (Eight Aspects, 2020), melodica and piano (basil eyes, 2020), and toy piano (Sycamore, 2020); and a string quartet composed for Tokyo-based musicGROVE (2021).

Recognized by ASCAP, Hillsborough Arts Council (Tampa, FL), and Creative Loafing (Tampa, FL) for his work, Tyler’s music has been performed throughout the United States, and internationally in Europe, Asia, and Brazil. Most recently, he was awarded the Ohio Individual Excellence Award (2024) for his work in music composition. His music has been presented at a variety of venues, festivals, and conferences, including World Piano Conference (Novi Sad, Serbia), Dot the Line New Music Festival (South Korea), London International Piano Symposium (London, England), San Francisco Piano Festival (San Francisco, CA), Southeastern Regional Tuba/Euphonium Conference (Tallahassee, FL), Lucca International Festival (Lucca, Italy), Atlantic Music Festival (Waterville, ME), Maryland Wind Festival, NYC Electroacoustic Music Festival, International Computer Music Conference, National Association of Composers/USA National Conference, and the Penn State University New-Music Festival and Symposium (State College, PA).

Equal parts music maker and contemporary music advocate, Tyler has worked extensively to build thoughtfully curated platforms that share the work of living composers with wider audiences. In 2017, Tyler co-founded Terroir New Music with composer Susanna Hancock, a live event series that pairs the music of living composers with the work of local chefs and brewers in casual venues.

Since 2019, Tyler has hosted and produced Modern Notebook, a weekly contemporary classical music radio show that has blossomed into a nationally distributed program heard on ten radio stations across the United States. Throughout the program’s 250+ episode run, the music of over 800 individual composers has been presented.

In April 2024, Tyler founded Loose Leaf Transmissions, an audio-forward multimedia platform, along with its flagship podcast music/Maker with Tyler Kline. This further extends Tyler's work on the radio, enabling long-form interviews with composers and other creatives to discuss their artistic journey, process, inspirations, and more.
 

A native of Kentucky, Tyler holds a Bachelor of Arts from Morehead State University, where he studied euphonium with Dr. Stacy Baker and held a multi-year undergraduate research fellowship mentored by Dr. Deborah Eastwood. He received a Master of Music from the University of South Florida, where his primary composition teachers were Dr. Baljinder Sekhon and Paul Reller. He currently resides in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Updated: Spring 2024

(Photo credit: Susanna Hancock)

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Tyler is currently not available for commissioning.

If you have an idea for a new work and would like to work with Tyler in the future,

e-mail him and let him know. tylerklinemusic (at) gmail (dot) com