Rate My Professor Kenneth Jimenez

Dr. Kenneth Jimenez, D.M.A., serves as Associate Professor and Chair of the Music Department at Valley City State University, where he is the primary faculty contact for the Music Performance Concentration and Music General Studies Concentration programs. His office is located in the Center for the Arts 204, and he can be reached at (701) 845-7381. Jimenez earned his Doctor of Musical Arts from North Dakota State University in May 2016. His doctoral disquisition, "Composer, Conductor, Cornetist: A Biography of Jean-Baptiste Schiltz (fl. 1831-1868) and a Survey of His Works for Cornet and Piano," provides new biographical details on the early cornet virtuoso Jean-Baptiste Schiltz and surveys his compositions for early cornets pitched in F or G. The work examines Schiltz's role in refining the cornet from an experimental instrument to a staple of virtuosic performance, analyzes selected solos for their idiomatic writing, and discusses their historical and pedagogical value today. This research culminated in a doctoral lecture recital featuring performances of Schiltz's cornet solos and was presented at the 2017 Historical Brass Society Conference in New York City.

Prior graduate work includes a master’s lecture recital at the University of Minnesota Duluth, focusing on trumpet solos and brass works by composers such as Vejvanovsky, Neruda, Kail, Martinu, and Husa, under the guidance of Dr. Thomas Muehlenbeck-Pfotenhauer, as well as studies with Dr. Scott Meredith at the University of Wyoming. As a performer on trumpet, cornet, and cornopean, Jimenez has appeared in numerous VCSU faculty and student events, including the Music Faculty Showcase recital performing an arrangement of Cavatine d’Anna Bolena by Donizetti and Conversation for Cornet by Clare Grundman (September 2024), the Inaugural Recital honoring President Alan LaFave (2019), and a recital with VCSU musicians at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (2019). His research interests encompass early-nineteenth-century French cornet solos by Schiltz, Fessy, Forestier, Gallay, and others, with plans to edit and publish these works. Jimenez has also innovated in brass pedagogy by designing and 3D-printing custom mouthpieces for historical trumpets and embouchure training devices, presenting on 3D printing in music at North Dakota State University (2014). He contributes to campus governance as an at-large member of the Institutional Review Board.