Hugh Keelan

In the spring of 2006, Maestro Hugh Keelan performed as piano soloist in Beethoven's 4th Piano Concerto with the Erie Philharmonic in addition to conducting Die Meistersinger Prelude, Till Eulenspiegel and the Afternoon of a Faun. These performances were a highlight of Maestro Keelan's tenure as Music Director of the Erie Philharmonic, following a 15-year tenure as Music Director of the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic, an orchestra of extraordinarily high quality calling on the finest players from New York and Philadelphia.

Born on Kingston-upon-Thames in England, Hugh Keelan has been a pianist since age 8, later also a violist. At the age of 16 Maestro Keelan conducted Beethoven's Emperor Concerto in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. He went on to study Music at Cambridge, his primary mentor being Robin Holloway, graduating with a Double First, the Hughes Prize 'for outstanding excellence', and the award of a coveted Harkness Fellowship (comparable to a Rhodes Scholarship) that allowed him to study conducting at Indiana University and Mannes College. Remaining in New York for private study with Vladimir Kin (from the Leningrad school of Mravinsky and Rabinovich,) he worked at the American Opera Center at the Juilliard School.

In the opera house Maestro Keelan worked with such luminaries as Sir Georg Solti, Sir Bernard Haitink and Sir Colin Davis.

Maestro Keelan is known and admired for his ability to connect very deeply with the performers with whom he works, and through them communicates an extraordinary power and enthusiasm to the audience. His major influences are the great conductors of the mid-20th century (Beecham, Klemperer, and De Sabata amongst others) and in our own times Carlos Kleiber.

Amongst many Guest Conducting engagements, highlights have been with the Saint Louis Symphony, La Fenice in Venice, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague.

Maestro Keelan is admired as an arranger, most recently having performed his own orchestration of Szymanowski's Romance op.23 with the Erie Philharmonic and their concertmaster Ken Johnston. Generating particular interest are his series of orchestrations of Harry Burleigh's Spirituals for solo voice and orchestra. Commissioned by The Burleigh Society, these are esteemed for being true to the original unadorned power of the spirituals that Burleigh transcribed and the deep sensitivity of Burleigh's own arrangements, while channeling the urgency of our own times. These will become available through hughkeelan.com along with other arrangements and orchestrations, ranging from a Christmas/Hanukkah Holiday Medley to an orchestration of Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata.

Maestro Keelan is very proud of the deep community loyalties he has created. A sense of personal identification through professional and personal channels with the community is essential in today's world. He has performed many times with his wife, Laurie Green, in classical, operatic and Broadway repertoire---not only as conductor, but playing the role of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady to Ms. Green's Eliza Doolittle.

ORCHESTRA 2011