Derek Keller is an award-winning composer and guitarist. His music investigates the coexistence, intermingling and hybridity between avant-garde and popular music. He recently finished a commission from John Zorn. This new work, Impositions and Consequences, along with several other original pieces are featured on a new CD released on Zorn’s Tzadik label. Intensely powerful, the pieces include inventive instrumentations that combine classical ones, such as cello, flute, and piano, along with electric guitar, computers, and drum sets.

In addition to being a composer, Keller is an accomplished guitarist. Aside from his own Derek Keller Ensemble, Keller performs with Colin McAllister challenging contemporary music by Steve Reich, Vinko Globokar and Franco Donatoni. In 2000, he and Colin MacAllister, his duo partner, presented the North American premiere of Helmut Lachenmann's Salut fur Caudwell (1977). Recently has been performing with the Sacramento-based jazz fusion ensemble, Kairos. 

Keller is also the curator for the St. Paul's Episcopal Church Music Series, focusing on highlighting original avant-garde and improvisational music in Sacramento. This developing series features both musicians from the local and national music scenes. (Please see Curating page for booking information.) Keller currently teaches composition at Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

Keller has received commissions from Fondation Royaumont, RedFishBlueFish, NOISE, Cantoria Choir at Truman State University, Cappella Gloriana, Athens Master Chorale and Mark Menzies. Keller has performed in master classes with Christopher Parkening. His music has been performed in the U.S., Mexico, France, Germany and Brazil.

He studied under the direction of Roger Reynolds at the University of Caifornia at San Diego, where he earned a Ph.D. in 2004. He has also studied composition with Anthony Davis, Chaya Czernowin, Rand Steiger, George Crumb, Jean-Luc Hervé, Brian Ferneyhough, David Lang, and Charles Wuorinen. Keller’s guitar mentor is John Sutherland of Atlanta.

Derek Keller was born in Philadelphia in 1971. He has lived in, St. Louis, Atlanta, and La Jolla. He currently resides in Sacramento, California with his spouse Hellen Lee-Keller, a professor at California State University, Sacramento, and their kittens, Georgie and Emmeline. Among his hobbies are sailing, cross-country skiing, and singing lead for a Yes tribute band, Parallels.

 

Emmeline and Georgie

Lucy 1999-2007

 

 

Last update May 8, 2008