Robert Keeley (composer)

Robert Keeley (born 1960) is a British composer and pianist. He studied with Oliver Knussen at the Royal College of Music, at Magdalen College, Oxford, under Bernard Rose, and later with Robert Saxton. In 1988 he studied at the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome with Franco Donatoni, and at the Tanglewood Summer Music School, where he was the Benjamin Britten Fellow in Composition, working with Knussen and Hans Werner Henze.

In 1993, Keeley joined the Department of Music at King's College London. In his capacity as a performer, Keeley has been a freelance pianist and repetiteur, working for Opera Factory, Almeida Opera and Garsington Opera, and has played with the London Sinfonietta and Music Projects/London, and now gives frequent solo recitals covering a wide range of repertoire.

Premieres
He has premiered works by, among others, Harrison Birtwistle, Michael Finnissy, Jonathan Cole and Richard Emsley. He has given lecture recitals in 20th-century piano music at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and seminars on his own music at UC Berkeley and the University of Oregon, Eugene. His own works, meanwhile, have been performed by, among others: BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Lontano, Premiere Ensemble, Ensemble Bash, pianists Martin Roscoe and Colin Stone, guitarists Jonathan Leathwood and Fabio Zanon, bass player Corrado Canonici, oboist Chris Redgate, the Chinook Clarinet Quartet, Fretwork and Composers' Ensemble.