Kenneth Parsons, associate professor of music at Southern Adventist University since 2000, directs the SAU Wind Symphony, brass choir, and jazz ensemble, and teaches trumpet and music education classes. Prior to his appointment at SAU he was at Forest Lake Academy in Florida where he had taught since 1986.

Chair of the department and conductor of the band at FLA, Parsons participated successfully with his concert and jazz bands and brass ensembles in regional and state Florida Bandmaster Association adjudication's for nine years, earning a superior rating in 1999 with his 75 member concert band. Additionally, during that same time a significant number of his students received superior adjudication ratings in the competition as well as music performance scholarships to SAU.

For four years he was the brass ensemble director and trumpet instructor at Rollins College in nearby Orlando. Parsons had also taught extension courses in music appreciation for both SAU and Oakwood College at FLA since 1998. He established an Enriched Honors in Musical Arts curriculum at FLA in which had an enrollment of fifty students during his last year there.

A 1983 music education and theology graduate of Walla Walla College, Parsons taught music at Redlands Junior Academy before attending the University of Oregon and completing a M.Mus. in brass performance in 1987. He has performed extensively on trumpet as an ensemble member and as a soloist in the Northwest, Southern California, Florida, and Tennessee. Trumpet teachers have included H. Lloyd Leno at WWC, Larry Ford at the University of Redlands, George Recker at UO, and others.

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