Kevin Harding

Guitarist and teacher Kevin Harding has performed throughout New England, in Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Cuba, Mexico and Brazil. In 1997 he was a featured artist at the 8th Festival de Guitarra in Lima, Peru.

Harding has studied with jazz guitarist Joe Cohn in Boston, with Brazilian master guitarists Romero Lubambo and Toninho Horta, and with choro guitarist Bilinho Teixeirain in Rio de Janeiro. He has also studied the Mande kora (21 string harp-lute) in Gambia, West Africa while living with the jali (hereditary praise singer) Alhaji Papa Susso and his family.

In 2003 Kevin co-founded the Richmond-based Brazilian music ensemble Quatro na Bossa. The group has performed many times at Dizzy’s Club (Jazz at Lincoln Center) in Manhattan along with guests Romero Lubambo, Maucha Adnet, Duduka da Fonseca, Nilson Matta and Harry Allen. Also, in New York, Quatro na Bossa recorded the CD “Summer Samba” for the Japanese label Venus Records in August 2007. The group released their second CD “Bossa Nossa” in 2012. Kevin has also performed and recorded with the acclaimed Richmond-based bolero group Miramar.

As a jazz musician, Kevin has played many times with Doug Richards’ Orchestra, The Great American Music Ensemble (GAME), at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. Two of these gigs featured legendary bassist Milt Hinton, and one featured Dr. Frank Foster of the Count Basie Orchestra. In 1996 GAME presented a two-hour, live, international radio broadcast from NPR studio 4-A in Washington, DC, and in 2009 the group recorded Richards’ “International Concerto” featuring trumpeter Rex Richardson. In smaller groups Kevin has performed with bebop pianist Barry Harris, trumpeter Clark Terry, violinist Joe Kennedy Jr., saxophonist George Coleman, and singers Rene Marie, Ethel Ennis and Stephanie Nakasian.

Kevin has been teaching at the University of Richmond since 1997. He was an adjunct lecturer in ethnomusicology at the College of William and Mary from 2012-2016 and an adjunct lecturer (ethnomusicology) at Randolph-Macon College from 2008 to 2024. He presented a lecture/performance titled "Defining Bossa Nova" at Duke University’s Global Brazil Conference: Nature, Politics and Culture. Durham, NC, 2017.

Kevin has a master’s degree in guitar performance from Virginia Commonwealth University’s Jazz Studies Program.