Spotlight | Principal Bass

Jeffrey Kail

More than a decade ago, while still a student at Indiana University, Jeffrey Kail won a position in the Kansas City Symphony’s bass section. In 2008, Kail won a separate audition to become principal bass. He is honored to have observed and taken part in the Kansas City Symphony’s transformational growth over the past seasons. Previously, Kail was a member of the Iris Chamber Orchestra in Memphis, Tennessee, as well as the Verbier Festival and Chamber Orchestra in Switzerland. He performed as soloist in Mozart’s “Per questa bella mano” with the Kansas City Symphony on the Classics Uncorked Series in 2014 and gave the world premiere of Kerwin Young’s Concerto for Bass with the University of Missouri-Kansas City Wind Symphony in 2013. Kail has performed with the Atlanta, Nashville and Grant Park symphonies. He studied at Indiana University and attended the Aspen Music Festival and School as an orchestral fellow for six summers. Kail is a faculty member at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory and enjoys teaching privately. He was inspired to become an orchestral musician and teacher by his mentor, the late Ralph Jones, principal bass of the Atlanta Symphony for 36 years. After being a proud downtown Kansas City dweller for seven years, Kail now enjoys living in Overland Park, Kansas, with his wife, Emma, and their sons, James and Charles. An avid outdoorsman, he hiked Mount Kilimanjaro in 2011. These days, Kail spends his time outside of the Symphony and Conservatory happily wrangling his two boys, and training for marathons very early in the morning.