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Photo: Natasha Blankfield

Australian improvising pianist & composer Andrea Keller is dedicated to the performance and creation of contemporary jazz and improvised music and has been described as having "one of Australia's most consistently interesting musical minds" (Doug Spencer 2007).

During Keller's professional career, she has led numerous projects as a pianist, whose focus has been to perform her original compositions and arrangements, most notably Wave Riders, PATSy, Still Night: Music in Poetry, Transients, Masters & Apprentices, Five Below, The Komeda Project, The Company of Pianos, From Ether, Three Lanes, The Wayne Shorter Project, The Andrea Keller Quartet/Quintet, and The Bartok Project. She was a co-founding member of the original Bennetts Lane Big Band (2001-2013).

The diversity of Keller's approach has seen her collaborate as performer, composer and arranger with Australian large ensembles such as; the Black Arm Band, the Australian Art Orchestra, the Vanessa Perica Orchestra, Ten Part Invention, Mike Nock's BigSmallBand, the Bennetts Lane Big Band, & the Sydney Women's Jazz Collective, jazz musicians such as; Sandy Evans, Mike Nock, Barney McAll, Bernie McGann, Allan Browne, contemporary classical musicians and ensembles such as; Genevieve Lacey, the Song Company, Ensemble Offspring, Flinders Quartet, James Crabb, Marshall McGuire, Zephyr Quartet, Trio Solstice, Claire Edwardes and Seraphim Trio, plus Internationals such as; Ingrid Jensen (CAN), John Surman (UK), Silke Eberhard (GER), Ronan Guilfoyle (IRE), and Nicole Lizee (CAN).

With a growing body of work traversing styles, Keller has been invited to compose and arrange music for the Australian Art Orchestra, Monash Art Ensemble, The Newmarket Collective (music for Auslan and Haptics), Trio Solstice, Ensemble Offspring, The Song Company, Marshall McGuire, Zephyr Quartet, The Black Arm Band, Genevieve Lacey & James Crabb Duo, 'Poetica' ABC Radio National, Genevieve Lacey, Four Winds Festival, ANU Canberra, Claire Edwardes, Melbourne Women's International Jazz Festival, Seraphim Trio, Ten Part Invention, Royal Children's Hospital, and Mike Nock.

Highly lauded in Australia, Andrea has received numerous awards for her music. In 2022 she was the HC Coombs Fellow at ANU Canberra and received the Art Music Luminary (Victoria) Award. Previous recognition includes three ARIA awards, multiple Australian Jazz Bell awards, a Music Victoria award, multiple Art Music awards, the Merlyn Myer Composing Women's Commission, the Melbourne Prize for Music Emerging Composer Award (2019).

an APRA Professional Development, an Australia Council Fellowship, and the inaugural MCA/Freedman Foundation Jazz Fellowship.

Andrea holds a Bachelor of Music in Improvisation (Honours) from the Victorian College of the Arts, a Master of Arts (Research) from Queensland University of Technology and a PhD from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Sydney University.

A champion of Australian creative music and a nurturer of emerging musicians, Andrea curates Monday nights at the Jazzlab, runs the educational program Gender Defying Jazz and is Head of Jazz & Improvisation at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne.

Andrea Keller — current to January 2024