Kevin Bourassa

Recording Engineering


Grammy-Nominated Recording Engineer Kevin Bourassa hates writing self-aggrandizing statements and lists about himself. Won’t someone just do it for him? He’s not that important yet? Well, I guess he’d better figure something out then.

Kevin has had the pleasure of working with a wide variety of ensembles during his very fortunate career, including the New York Philharmonic, Kansas City Symphony, Utah Symphony, Orchestra of St Luke’s, Virginia Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Sarasota Orchestra, New Orchestra of Washington, the Choir and Orchestra of Trinity Wall Street in New York City, the Santa Fe Desert Chorale, the Choral Arts Society of Washington DC, the National Music Festival, ensembles at the universities of Illinois, Delaware, North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and Massachusetts-Amherst, among many others. He has engineered critically-acclaimed commercial releases of music from instrumental and vocal ensembles of many sizes and eras of focus, featuring conductors including Jo-Ann Falletta, Thierry Fischer, Leonard Slatkin, and Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez, composers including Ricky Ian Gordon, George Walker, Lori Laitman, William Bolcom, John Musto, and soloists and ensembles including Piers Lane, Juliana Soltis, the Attacca Quartet, NOVUS NY, Stephen Tharp, Jeremy Filsell, Moye Chen, Rex Richardson, Timothy Ehlen, Michael Kris, and Marcus Thompson, on record labels including Deutsche Grammophone, Hyperion, Naxos, Acis, Bright Shiny Things, MSR, Centaur, Albany, Azica, Blujazz, and PARMA. 

Kevin gained his first Grammy nomination in 2020 for his engineering and editing work on bass-baritone Stephen Powell’s debut album “American Composers At Play”, featuring works and performances by Powell accompanied instrumentally by several of America’s most prolific living composers in their own works. He has also enjoyed a long and successful partnership with pianist Samuel Gingher in a project to record many rediscovered works by composer Carl Czerny, with several discs of a variety of chamber repertoire available on the Naxos label. He has felt incredible gratitude to legendary Decca engineer John Dunkerley, under whose tutelage Kevin has honed his technique and gained a thorough understanding of and appreciation for the history of classical recorded sound from the so-called Golden Age of Stereo; it has become a large part of his vocation to advocate for the immediacy and care given to recordings of that era, in his work with his clients and students today.  

In addition to his freelance engineering work, Kevin works on the staff of Manhattan School of Music’s Orto Center, which produces, records, and streams more than 500 concerts, recitals, and sessions for students, faculty, and guest artists annually. He is also the recording engineer and mentor for the National Music Festival in Chestertown, Maryland, and works as Chief Engineer and Technical Director for record label Acis Productions. 

In addition to his engineering work, Kevin is also an unrepentant trumpeter, appearing on multiple commercial releases and performing live, most recently with the Bushwick Big Band. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his significantly better half, soprano Aani Bourassa.