FC2Video

[ TMS Live Shanghai ] Kirk Kenney - Trimming the Leaves

Video recorded at The Jungle Studio in Shanghai on 1st October 2021 by Shafoin (Video) and Nick Chow (Audio).

Kirk Kenney is an eclectic bilingual musician, who has performed, collaborated, and coordinated tours in over 30 cities in China, at venues small and large, from DDC to the Shanghai Concert Hall to the National Centre for the Performing Arts. Kirk performs solo and collaborates with local and international musicians. He has been awarded grants from the US Department of State and the Ford Foundation, and continues to look for new ways to bring people from around the world together through music and the arts. Kenney’s music draws on influences from traditional musics of the Americas, Africa, Central and East Asia, and especially the heartfelt, humorous and honest storytelling of Floridian musician, Gamble Rogers. A self-taught guitarist, Kenney studied horse-head fiddle with Hugjiltu (Ajinai Band), getting more involved in Beijing’s underground music scene. He picked up traditional American fiddle after studying and playing with Michael Ismerio, and honed his stage experience playing with bands like the Beijing Alchemists, The Randy Abel Stable, the Ring Road Ramblers, the Hutong Yellow Weasels/the Mountain High, Emerald Rae and Sourpuss. He was invited to perform at master pipa player Dong Nan’s camp in Qingdao. Not only a singer and multi-instrumentalist, he has also gone behind the scenes to coordinate tours for the bands Manhu, Jenny and the Hog Drovers, Erynn Marshall and Carl Jones, and Cynthia Sayer and Her Joyride Band. When he’s not memorizing lyrics on a train, doing yoga, or learning how to brew a good espresso, he likes to walk around Shanghai’s ex-French Concession, admiring old buildings and trees.