Kevin Newton is a GRAMMY® winning hornist, chamber musician and educator based in Manhattan. He is the horn player of Imani Winds and is an active freelancer in the greater New York area. While growing up in Virginia, his first music teacher, his mother, instilled in him a love of music-making’s collaborative nature which persists to this day.

Mr. Newton has performed/recorded with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Roomful of Teeth, Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, Alarm Will Sound, Talea Ensemble, Sejong Soloists, Nu Deco Ensemble, Harlem Chamber Players, Gateways Festival Chamber Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, Tredici Bacci, Gil Evans Project and Chamber Music Society of Central Virginia among others. As a soloist with Imani Winds, he has performed with the Baltimore Symphony and Savannah Philharmonic. He has also performed on Broadway as a substitute musician in the pits of The Lion King and The Wiz. In addition to Imani Winds he is a member of Metropolitan Horn Authority and Tsons of Tsunami.

An advocate for new music, Mr. Newton has premiered solo pieces for horn by Erin Busch and José Manuel Serrano and will premiere a new horn concerto from Anthony Plog. He has commissioned solo works by Tsuneo Imahori and Jeff Scott. As a chamber and orchestral musician Kevin has participated in premieres of works by Valerie Coleman, Jeff Scott, Arturo Sandoval, Danny Elfman, Paquito D’Rivera, Unsuk Chin, Nathalie Joachim, Miguel Del Aguila, Shawn Okpebholo, Joy Guidry, Jessica Meyer, Damien Snead, Carlos Simon, Damien Geter, Simon Hanes and Saad Hadaad among many others.

As a composer, Kevin has written pieces for solo horn and piano, most recently fulfilling a commission from the Kayden Music Commissioning Program at the Juilliard School Pre-College with the piece Hill House, published through Coleman Page Music. 

Kevin has been published in the New York Times and The Horn Call as a contributing writer. 

Mr. Newton formerly served as principal horn of the Waynesboro Symphony and, as an orchestral soloist, has performed works by Gordon Jacob, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Valerie Coleman, Jeff Scott and Franz Strauss. As a soloist, Kevin has also performed his original works at Tanglewood BUTI and Justinian Tamusuza’s Okukoowoola Kw’Ekkondeere for solo horn for Orchestra 2001. Kevin was a featured artist at the 2024 International Horn Symposium and at the 2022 Southeast Horn Workshop. Kevin will be a featured artist at the 2025 Northwest Horn Symposium. 

Mr. Newton holds faculty positions at the Curtis Institute of Music and Manhattan School of Music’s Contemporary Performance Program. He is also on the faculty of the Kendall Betts Horn Camp. Mr. Newton has delivered horn masterclasses at many institutions including Yale University, Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music and Boston Conservatory at Berklee among others. As a member of Imani Winds, he has taught chamber masterclasses at colleges across the country.

Mr. Newton is currently pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts degree at SUNY Stony Brook. He holds a Master of Music in orchestral performance from Manhattan School of Music and a Bachelor of Music from Virginia Commonwealth University. His primary teachers have been David Jolley, Dr. Patrick Smith and Iffet Araniti-Davis.