Senior Kayvon Solaimanpour is known for his presence on stage as both an actor and singer, yet his unique impulse to pursue adventure has affected his outlook in both in the spotlight and other interests.

“I always like to try new things,” Kayvon said. “That’s not something a lot of people know. Every time that I’m put in a role, I always make sure to always try something new and try to go out of my comfort zone and see if I can discover a new way or a way that I’ve never tried before to connect with the character. There’s just something really exhilarating about doing something you’ve never done before, and that’s something I love to do.”

Aside from his musical theatre career, he is also known by his stage name “KX”, the title he uses for his music production pursuit.

“In eighth grade, my friend showed me a Skrillex song called ‘My Name is Skrillex,’” Kayvon said. “I listened to it for the first time, and I was like, ‘This is super cool.’ I was always confused as to how do you make dubstep, like what instrument makes that noise, and I found that it’s not an instrument; you use your laptop. Then basically, through watching tons and tons of Youtube videos, I started learning different ways of music production, different techniques different software that you use. That’s really how I got started. I have experience in choirs and musicals obviously, and in all those instances I’ve been singing something that other people have created for us to sing, so this was a chance for me to really do something different and create something from the ground up — anything that I wanted to create.”

Engaging in music production as a hobby has enhanced Kayvon’s audacious and optimistic disposition.

“It’s not like you put it into your laptop, and you’re done,” Kayvon said. “You’re constantly changing it, constantly revising it. You’re saying ‘Oh, what happens if I make this note longer? What happens if I made this shorter?’, and a lot of times in music production you don’t know what you’re doing. You just try things until you find something that you really like, and it’s made me, in an artistic sense, a little bit more fearless, where I’m totally willing to try something new and if it doesn’t work out it doesn’t work out, and I try something different.”

Kayvon plans to continue both music production as well as his musical theatre interest after leaving Harker.

“I think probably, if I were to speak to music production, I would just want to continue producing music because it’s a hobby of mine, it’s something I do to destress. It’s something I do just to give me a creative outlet,” Kayvon said. “That’s something I really don’t plan on stopping. Right now I just make music for myself, not making it for money or to distribute it or anything. That might change in the future. For musical theatre, in college, I’m definitely planning on auditioning for a cappella groups and different choirs. Depending on the college I go to, if they let non-majors perform in musical theatre or in plays and musicals, then by all means, I would definitely audition. It’s something that has been a huge part of my life, and I don’t think I’m ready to give that up yet.”