John Kenneth C. Gorder (Kenken), is a highly versatile trumpeter and music educator He is an active member of the Austin-based new music collective and chamber orchestra, Density512 and the Black House Collective, based in Los Angeles, CA. Kenken belongs to a mixed-instrument trio he founded in 2022 called knawl, which is composed of saxophone, trumpet, and double bass. He and his trio members, Dr. Sarah Hetrick (saxophone) and Dr. Will Yager (double bass), have been invited to perform as artists-in-residence at the University of Iowa’s Voxman School of Music in 2022, and as a performing ensemble at the 2023 International Saxophone Symposium.
As an educator, he maintains a trumpet studio of over a dozen students in Austin and the surrounding area. His students have performed at the regional, state, and national levels. Kenken has been invited as a clinician at Luther College, University of Mary-Hardin Baylor, and the University of Iowa. He also serves on the instrumental music faculty at the North Carolina Governor’s School West program.
As a performer and advocate of new music, he has premiered over three dozen pieces of music of varying instrumentations at live and virtual events like the Oh My Ears Festival in Phoenix, AZ and 1:2:1, a weeklong intensive led by four-time Grammy-winning cellist, Nick Photinos. Some recent highlights include a trumpet and multimedia work in collaboration with composer Matt McAllister, entitled Still Pools, a solo trumpet and mixed media piece that was inspired by Langston Hughes’ poem, “April Rain Song”. He also collaborated with composer Wenxin Li on an acoustic trumpet solo entitled 1399. Both pieces can be seen and heard on Kenken’s YouTube channel and “Recordings” page of his website. His current project is an upcoming solo-chamber album entitled NüToots: an album of commissions for trumpet solo, mixed duo, and mixed trio pieces by composers Nathan Nokes, Blair Boyd, Celka Ojakangas, Sam Wells, Valentin Jost, Akshaya Avril Tucker, Matt McAllister, and Wenxin Li.
Aside from the recordings found on his website, Kenken can be heard on Anika Kildegaard & Jean-François Charles’ album, Missa brevis Abbaye de Thélème; saxophonist Kenneth Tse’s record, The Voxman Project, on the Crystal Records label; Density512’s debut LP, Akousmatika; and also on a genre-defying album entitled Devotion by experimental composer/flutist, François Minaux.
Outside of performing new music, he has performed with the Altoona Symphony Orchestra, Muscatine Symphony Orchestra, the HoodleBug Brass Quintet, and the Iowa Brass Quintet. Kenken was a semi-finalist in the 2012, 2017, and 2018 National Trumpet Competition, and a performer at the 2017 and 2018 International Trumpet Guild Conferences. He also served as an ensemble coach at Interlochen Center for the Arts in addition to his duties as a camp counselor for the high school boys division.
Kenken earned a master’s degree in trumpet performance studying under the tutelage of Dr. Amy Schendel at the University of Iowa and a bachelor of science degree in music education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Previous trumpet teachers include Dr. Kevin Eisensmith, Ken Brader, and Kyle Fleming.