Stephen Kent (musician) facts for kids
Stephen Kent is a talented musician who plays the didgeridoo, a cool wind instrument from Australia. He's also a percussionist (someone who plays drums and other rhythm instruments), a composer (someone who writes music), and a recording artist. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area in the USA.
His Musical Journey
Stephen Kent has been making music for a long time. In 1988, he started a band called Lights in a Fat City. With this band, he released some of the first modern didgeridoo music albums in the northern part of the world. These albums were called Somewhere and Sound Column.
Later, in 1992, Stephen helped create another band called Trance Mission in San Francisco. This band explored a unique style of music that blended ancient sounds with electronic music. Trance Mission released three popular albums and toured in Europe and played many shows in the US. Over time, some band members changed, but Stephen continued with Trance Mission, even performing at the Starwood Festival in 2006.
In the 2000s, Stephen released two more solo albums, Oil & Water and Living Labyrinths. He also worked with many other musicians from different parts of the world. For example, he played with Chirgilchin, a group famous for Tuvan throat singing. He also worked with Moroccan musician Yassir Chadly and blues musician Markus James. Stephen even performed with the Del Sol String Quartet, playing music by an Australian composer named Peter Sculthorpe. They even played at the Library of Congress in Washington DC!
Currently, Stephen is part of two music groups that focus on Indian music. One group is called Australian Bebop Ragas, and he plays with Teed Rockwell on the Chapman Stick and Sameer Gupta on Tabla drums. The other group is Baraka Moon, where he plays with Geoffrey Gordon on drums and Sukhawat Ali Khan on vocals and Harmonium.
Stephen as a Recording Artist
Stephen Kent has released many of his own albums. He has also played on albums for his bands like Trance Mission and Lights in a Fat City. He's also worked as a "session musician," which means he plays on other artists' albums. He has played with famous musicians like Airto Moreira and Badi Assad. He also helped create the album Halcyon Days with Steve Roach and Kenneth Newby.
