Highly lauded with multiple awards, improvisational jazz pianist and composer Andrea Keller has received three ARIA Awards, seven Australian Jazz ‘Bell’ Awards, two Art Music Awards (including the award for Excellence in Jazz), an APRA Professional Development Award, the Merlyn Myer Composing Women’s Commission, a Music Victoria Award – Best Jazz Album, the Melbourne Music Prize – Beleura Emerging Composers Award, a fellowship from the Australia Council, and the inaugural MCA / Freedman Foundation Jazz Fellowship. Andrea most recently won the Music Victoria, Industry Voted Award for Best Jazz Act in 2021. In 2021 she was also nominated for the Music Victoria Award for Best Musician as well as the Music Victoria Award for Outstanding Woman in Music.
Andrea Keller is also our Musician of the Month for September. Australian Musician editor Greg Phillips sat down with Andrea at Melbourne’s JazzLab to discuss her career, pianos and creating music in general.
Born of Czech parents, Andrea grew up in Sydney, Australia. She studied piano, flute and saxophone at the Sydney Conservatorium High School. Inspired by her older brother, she penned her first compositions at the age of 10 and received her AMusA with distinction on piano at age 14. It was around this time that she was introduced to jazz music and the art of improvisation. Continuing to explore classical, jazz and original musics throughout her teenage years, her musical path became more defined when she moved to Melbourne as a lone teenager in the 1990s to study improvisation at the Victorian College of the Arts.
Committed to creating new music with an emphasis on improvisation and collaboration, she has released twenty albums as bandleader since 2000, and has performed on many other albums, including those by the Black Arm Band Company, the Australian Art Orchestra, and Eddie Perfect. Andrea has also been invited to compose works for a variety of artists and ensembles – most recently for the Monash Art Ensemble, Genevieve Lacey and Marshall McGuire, and Ensemble Offspring.
Andrea holds a PhD from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, University of Sydney. She runs Gender Defying Jazz, an annual workshop series for female, transgender and non-binary musicians and is Head of Jazz and Improvisation at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne.
https://www.andreakellermusician.com/
UPCOMING SHOWS:
SEP 5 MON
Transients Haywood/Bates/Keller @ 7:30pm
Brunswick, Australia
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SEP 12 MON
Wave Riders II @ 7:30pm
Brunswick, Australia
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SEP 19 MON
Andrea Keller’s Mystery Performance.. @ 7:30pm
Brunswick, Australia
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SEP 26 MON
Andrea Keller Curates: Bates/Hurren Duo @ 7:30pm
Brunswick, Australia
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OCT 3 MON
PATSy @ 7:30pm
Brunswick, Australia
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OCT 10 MON
Five Below @ 7:30pm
Brunswick, Australia
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OCT 17 MON
Andrea Keller Curates: Stephen Magnusson Trio @ 7:30pm
Brunswick, Australia
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OCT 24 MON
Dasika/Svoboda/Keller @ 7:30pm
Brunswick, Australia
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OCT 31 MON
Andrea Keller Curates: Piano Club @ 7:30pm
Brunswick, Australia
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