Wendel Patrick has been referred to as “David Foster Wallace reincarnated as a sound engineer” by Urbanite Magazine and as “wildly talented” by the Baltimore Sun. He has been referred to by XLR8R magazine as “a hip hop producer that could easily make any fan of Squarepusher, Boards of Canada, or Madlib flip out.” The alter-ego of classical and jazz pianist Kevin Gift, Wendel Patrick is rapidly making a name for himself as a producer to be recognized. His five albums, Sound:, Forthcoming, JDWP, Passage, and Travel were all produced without the use of sampling, with Patrick playing every note of every instrument. What is perhaps most astounding and perplexing to listeners is that there are actually no instruments…he crafts all of the instruments, and every note, electronically.

Equally at home performing on stage with his band, behind two turntables, beatboxing, improvising, or playing a Mozart Concerto with orchestra, Wendel Patrick has toured Europe on several occasions and performed throughout the world with renowned spoken word artist and poet Ursula Rucker (The Roots, 4 Hero). In 2014, Wendel Patrick traveled to Australia as a guest lecturer, speaking about music production and entrepreneurship in the arts at The Australian Institute of Music in both Sydney and Melbourne. In 2011, Patrick co-founded, with Erik Spangler (DJ Dubble8), the Baltimore Boom Bap Society which performs monthly improvised hip hop shows with hand picked musicians and emcees. The group’s collaborative performance with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra of Igor Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale was named “Best Mesmerizing Performance of 2016” by Baltimore Magazine. Wendel Patrick’s music has also been heard across the country on NPR stations, most notably on Out of the Blocks, an award winning radio documentary program he co-produces with radio producer Aaron Henkin for  NPR affiliate WYPR that has been featured by the Third Coast International Audio Festival and Hearing Voices as well as on the BBC. Patrick’s orchestral compositions have been performed by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in collaboration with the Baltimore Boom Bap Society. An avid photographer and videographer, his photography has been exhibited in art galleries including the Baltimore Museum of Art. Patrick shoots all of the accompanying documentary photography and videography for Out of the Blocks.

Wendel Patrick/Kevin Gift majored in both music and political science at Emory University and earned his M.M. in Piano Performance as a scholarship student at the Northwestern University School of Music in Evanston, Illinois. He was a Nasir Jones Hop Hop Fellow at Harvard University in 2021-22. Patrick is a winner of the 2015 Baker Artist Awards’ Mary Sawyers Baker grand prize, and was a full time faculty member at Loyola University Maryland from 2001 to 2013 teaching piano, introduction to music theory, music history, and electronic music production. He has taught at the Maryland Institute College of Art and currently teaches “Hip Hop Music Production: History and Practice” at the Peabody Conservatory, the first course of its kind to be taught at a major traditional music conservatory anywhere in the United States.