Keane Southard

From Wind Repertory Project
Keane Southard

Biography

Keane Southard (b. 26 September 1987, Chapel Hill, N.C.) is an American composer and pianist.

Keane earned his M.M. in composition at the University of Colorado-Boulder where he served as a graduate assistant in music theory. He graduated summa cum laude with his B.M. from the Conservatory at Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, where he double majored in music composition and music theory with a minor in English literature. His primary composition teachers include Kenneth Girard, Loris Chobanian, Daniel Kellogg, Jeffrey Nytch, Carter Pann, Richard Toensing, and Allen Shawn, plus additional studies with Samuel Adler, Derek Bermel, João Guilherme Ripper, Brian Robison, and Hillary Zipper. He spent 2013 in Brazil as a Fulbright scholar researching music education, and has also taught at Bennington College in Vermont.

Taken as a whole, his works reflect his many and diverse musical tastes, from medieval chant to 70s rock, Bach to the blues, and German romanticism to Latin dance forms. His compositions have been performed by ensembles such as the Petrobras Symphony Orchestra (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Longfellow Chorus and Orchestra, Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra, University of Colorado Wind Symphony, Juventas New Music Ensemble, Tesla Quartet, Playground Ensemble, and Ars Nova Singers. His music has been described as “highly-professional and well-orchestrated” (Portland Press Herald).

Keane has been a recipient of many awards including the Lee Goldstein Composition Award from Baldwin-Wallace College, the Cecil Effinger Composition Award and George Lynn Prize from The University of Colorado-Boulder, First Prize in the Longfellow Chorus International Composers Cantata Competition, the Charles B. Olson Young Composer Award, and the Ars Nova Singers Colorado Composers Competition. He has received commissions from the Colorado State Music Teachers Association, the Northeastern State University Wind Ensemble (OK), the Arrowhead Union High School Wind Ensemble (WI), the Sounds of Stow Chorus and Orchestra, pianist Christopher Janwong McKiggan, saxophonist Allison Dromgold Adams, and cellist Christine Thomas Tsen. His works have been performed across the US and internationally in Germany, Brazil, Poland, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Romania, and Australia. He has been awarded residency fellowships at Playa and the Kimmel-Harding-Nelson Center and summer fellowships at the Bowdoin International Music Festival and Northeastern University Fusion Arts Exchange.

In the summer of 2016, Keane hiked the New England portion of the Appalachian Trail, a distance of more than 700 miles, and is currently writing a symphony inspired by the experience, which is being commissioned by a consortium of orchestras throughout New England.


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