Kevin Kwan Loucks

Early life and formal education

Loucks, a Korean adoptee, grew up in Santa Rosa, California, where he was active in the instrumental music program as an honors student at Santa Rosa High School. He attended the University of California, Irvine, where he worked with pianist Nina Scolnik and received the Dean's Award for Excellence upon graduating with a bachelor of music degree in 2004. While a student at UC Irvine, Loucks attended the Aspen Music Festival and Music@Menlo where he worked closely with cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han. Loucks moved to New York City to continue his piano studies with Julian Martin at The Juilliard School where he studied chamber music with pianists Yoheved Kaplinsky, Seymour Lipkin, and cellist Fred Sherry. At Juilliard, he received the Luba and George Goldberg Prize and the Susan Rose Fellowship before graduating with a master of music degree in 2006.

He took a year off to concertize before enrolling in the doctoral program at Stony Brook University in New York where he served as head of piano for the Pre-College Division and was teaching assistant for the Emerson String Quartet and the university's graduate chamber music department. He worked with pianist Christina Dahl, violinists Pamela Frank and Philippe Graffin, cellist Colin Carr, and the Emerson String Quartet, and was awarded a doctor of musical arts degree from the university in 2014. He was the recipient of the Dean's Fellowship for Professional Activities, the Ackerman Memorial Award for Service in Chamber Music, and the Distinguished Travel Award from Stony Brook's Graduate Student Organization. During his studies at Stony Brook, Loucks also attended programs at The Banff Centre in Canada where he worked with pianists Marc Durand and Robert McDonald.

In 2017, Loucks graduated with an Executive Master of Business Administration degree from the Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University in Orange, California where he studied entrepreneurship, finance, management, and strategy. He is currently finishing his executive education at Stanford Graduate School of Business where he is studying marketing and innovation, brand management, and digital marketing strategy.

Performance career

Loucks has concertized as both soloist and chamber musician throughout Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Italy, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, and the United States. He performed as soloist with the Bratislava Chamber Orchestra, the Seoul National University Virtuosi, and the California Chamber Orchestra, and has been featured in prominent international concert venues including the Daejeon Cultural and Arts Center, the Kennedy Center, Kumho Art Hall, Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall, Martinu Hall in Liechtenstein Palace, Merkin Concert Hall, the Moulin d'Andé, Prösels Castle, Soka Performing Arts Center, IBK Chamber Hall and the Recital Hall at Seoul Arts Center, as well as both Weill Recital Hall and Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall.

As a collaborative artist, Loucks has been featured in recital performances with Rachel Barton Pine, Denis Brott, James Campbell, Colin Carr, Paul Coletti, Robert deMaine, Eugene Drucker, Alan Kay, Edgar Meyer, Frank Morelli, Johannes Moser, Lara St. John, Kyung Sun Lee, Stephen Prutsman, Roger Tapping, Raphael Wallfisch, Carol Wincenc, and Peter Zazofsky. He has also appeared with numerous ensembles including the Afiara, Arneis, Beaubliss, Cecilia, Jupiter, Rus, and YUL String Quartets, and has performed and recorded as a member of Gruppo Montebello, an All‐Star Ensemble of acclaimed faculty and alumni from The Banff Centre.

The Krechkovsky/Loucks Duo

In 2004 Loucks met concert violinist and future wife Iryna Krechkovsky at a music festival in Italy where the two were scheduled to perform together. Later that year they formed the award-winning Krechkovsky/Loucks Duo and have since performed hundreds of recitals together throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. They have performed the majority of the violin/piano repertoire with particular interest in the music of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Corigliano, Debussy, Gershwin, Janacek, Mozart, Saint-Saëns, Szymanowski, and Tchaikovsky. The Duo has also premiered numerous compositions written for them by composers including Samuel Adler and Philip Lasser, and have worked closely with John Corigliano in New York City.

Trio Céleste

At the recommendation of pianist Wu Han, Loucks formed Trio Céleste in 2012 with Krechkovsky and cellist Ross Gasworth who performed together with Krechkovsky during their graduate studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2006 and 2007. The trio has since established itself as one of the most active and dynamic chamber music ensembles in the country with major recital performances in Cleveland, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Toronto.

In their inaugural season, Trio Céleste was selected as winners of the prestigious Beverly Hills Auditions in Los Angeles and were appointed Artists-in-Residence at the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at the University of California, Irvine, where they also direct the annual Summer Chamber Music Festival. The ensemble also makes up the core of Chamber Music | OC, both as principal performers and as organizational administrators.

The trio’s first performance project, “The Complete Piano Trios of Ludwig van Beethoven” included three separate performances of the entire piano trio cycle of Beethoven in Irvine, San Francisco, and Toronto, as well as multiple performances of the Triple Concerto with the UC Irvine Symphony Orchestra at the Irvine Barclay Theater and the Capistrano Conductor's Institute Orchestra at the Marcus D. Hurlbut Theater in Southern California. Their second performance project, “The American Project” took place in June 2015 and featured world premieres by Christopher Dobrian and jazz flautist Nicole Mitchell.

Trio Céleste recorded their debut album with Grammy Award winning recording engineer Jesse Lewis at Soka Performing Arts Center in June 2015. The album, released on the Navona label, debuted at No. 5 on iTunes for new classical music releases, and No. 10 on Amazon.com for chamber music releases and has received critical acclaim from major publications including The Strad who said, "The US West Coast-based Céleste Trio may have been formed only four years ago, but judging from its first disc it has an important career ahead of it...The playing in Beethoven’s early Piano Trio in G major is not only accomplished but unfailingly stylish – crisply turned yet high in character...The second movement is a rapt fusion of slow, pliantly lilting siciliana, prayer-like solemnity and twinkling delicacy. Constellations – ten newly commissioned variations based on the opening theme from the second movement of Beethoven’s Trio – are novel if not all successful...In Dvořák’s ‘Dumky’ Trio, the players contrast sparkling exuberance in the fast sections with heart-rending tragedy in the slow ones – the Poco adagio of the second movement is especially mesmeric in its frozen motion. They vividly realise the composer’s ambition to combine the ‘melancholy and delirious joy of life… in the same being’."

International Arts Mentoring Program

The Education and Culture Association of South Korea created the International Arts Mentoring Project in 2010 to bring music performance and arts education to underprivileged children throughout South Korea. Loucks was invited to lead and direct the artistic operations of the project that included the selection of over fifty student to take part in over two weeks of mentoring and formal concert performances in Busan, Seoul, and Yongin. The program featured private lessons and master classes for pianists and string players, interdisciplinary performance projects with actors and dancers, and a weeklong arts camp that culminated in a formal performance tour of the country.

Orange County Great Park

In 2011 Loucks was selected as Artist-in-Residence at the Orange County Great Park in Irvine, California. He conceived and developed an eight-concert chamber music series that featured Canadian cellist Denis Brott, Alarm Will Sound clarinetist Bill Kalinkos, The Krechkovsky/Loucks Duo, and Trio Céleste among others. Each individual program included unique interactions with the audience, public workshops, lectures, and special programs for kids. It was through the success of this residency that then Mayor of Irvine, Sukhee Kang, convinced Loucks and Krechkovsky to move to Irvine, California.

Chamber Music | OC

Launched in 2012 by Loucks and Krechkovsky, Chamber Music | OC is a unique arts initiative designed to address what Loucks says are many of the complex issues facing performers and audiences alike: "It is a project that embodies the most important elements shaping classical music today – a commitment to the art of performance, educating the next generation of young musicians, and the necessity to contribute to one’s community through the arts.”

Performance

The Performance division of Chamber Music | OC is designed to provide residents of the greater Orange County area with world-class chamber music performances presented by rising stars and established veterans in the classical music world. Distinguished guest artists have included Colin Carr, cello; Yuri Cho, violin; Paul Coletti, viola; Robert deMaine, cello; Eugene Drucker, violin; Grace Fong, piano; the Jupiter String Quartet; Alan Kay, clarinet; Julian Martin, piano; David Samuel, viola; Philip Setzer, violin; Trio Céleste; and William VerMeulen, horn. The 2016/2017 season was capped by the organization's sold-out Carnegie Hall Debut at Zankel Hall featuring the world premiere of a new work by composer Paul Dooley. 2017/2018 guest artists include Glenn Dicterow, violin; Karen Dreyfus, viola; Kyung Sun Lee, violin; Robert McDonald, piano; Ben Ullery, viola; and returning artists Paul Coletti, viola; and Robert deMaine, cello.

Education

The Education division of Chamber Music | OC is anchored by the Young Artist Program, the only full-scholarship program of its kind in the country. The program provides a unique and comprehensive musical education that features chamber music coachings and performance classes, musicianship and eurythmics workshops, career development seminars, participation in distinguished guest artist master classes, community outreach performances, and the Rising Stars Recital Series. Select members and alumni from the Young Artist Program appeared in Carnegie Hall in April 2017. The Young Artist Program is directed by Krechkovsky.

Community

The Community Outreach Division of Chamber Music | OC aspires to make the benefits of music widely accessible through collaborations with local schools and community organizations. The program offers a range of single- and multi- session workshops designed to give participants the opportunity to enjoy and learn about how music can positively affect their well-being. Partnering organizations include the Irvine Adult Day Health Services, Human Options, and the Orange County Childrens Therapeutic Art Center. The Community Outreach division is directed by Michelle Gasworth.

Grand Canyon Residency

In 2013 Chamber Music | OC was selected from over five hundred applicants to be Artists-in-Residence at the Grand Canyon National Park where they performed, gave public master classes, and led educational outreach projects throughout the South Rim in August 2014.

Awards and recognition

Loucks has been called "impeccable" by La Presse, Montreal; "a shining talent" by Völser Zeitung, Italy; and a pianist of “exhilarating polish, unity and engagement” by The Orange County Register, California. He has been featured in live performances on National Public Radio's Performance Today, CBC Radio 2, KUSC, the Public Broadcasting Service, KABC-TV Los Angeles, and the Korean Broadcasting System. He was a top prize winner at the Schlern International Competition in Italy, the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition in Boston, the Beverly Hills Auditions in Los Angeles on two separate occasions, the Music Teachers' Association of California Duo-Piano Competition, and the 2012 American Prize in Piano Performance. In 2015 Loucks was named one of Orange County's most influential people by OC Weekly.

Personal

Loucks currently resides in Irvine, California, with his wife and musical partner, violinist Iryna Krechkovsky. He is an avid outdoorsman having earned his Eagle Scout in 2000, and is also an active stock investor.