Kevin McFarland is best known as the founding cellist of the world-renowned JACK Quartet, with whom he traveled across five continents, collaborated with hundreds of composers, and performed up to seventy concerts a year. After a dozen whirlwind years with the cutting-edge foursome and a decade in New York City, Kevin departed for Colorado in 2016 to be full time with his dogs (and human partner too.) He frequently performs with Denver-area collective Wild Beautiful Orchestra and recently joined Nebula Ensemble, an award-winning Colorado-based experimental music group. He has made numerous guest appearances with prominent champions of contemporary music such as Alarm Will Sound, Ensemble Signal, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, and Wordless Music Orchestra.

Kevin's composition works have been premiered by vocalist Abigail Fischer, Hutchins Consort East, the Deviant Septet, and DU students and faculty as part of the Lamont Composers Concert Series (LCCS). His essay published in Performing Xenakis from Pendragon Press received a shout out on Alex Ross’s The Rest is Noise blog in 2011. A bit of a multi-hyphenate, his current musical practices include performance, composition, improvisation, electronic music, and speculative music theory.

Kevin is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Denver – Lamont School of Music, where he teaches music theory and coaches modern chamber music. He completed his master’s degree at Lamont in 2024, where he studied composition with Sean Friar and Nathan Hall. Kevin holds a bachelor’s degree from the Eastman School of Music where he studied composition with Robert Morris, David Liptak, Steven Stucky, and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, and cello with Steven Doane.