Stefan Keller (CH)

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Stefan Keller was born in Zürich in 1974. From 1995 to 2002 he studied Oboe at the Musikhochschule Zürich with Peter Fuchs and Simon Fuchs, after the concert diploma for another one and a half years at the Utrecht School of the Arts with Ernest Rombout. After his first composition studies in his hometown with Hans Ulrich Lehmann, Gerald Bennett and Michael Jarrell he continued from 2002 to 2007 to study composition with Hanspeter Kyburz at the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler in Berlin, as well as music theory with Jörg Mainka and electronic music with Wolfgang Heiniger. In 2019 he did a PhD in comparative musicology at the Freie Universität Berlin with a dissertation on variation techniques in tabla music. From 2006 to 2016 and again since 2020 he teaches at the Adademy of Music Hanns Eisler Berlin. 2008/2009 he attended the Cursus 1 at the Ircam in Paris and stayed at the Cité des Arts as an awardee of the Berlin Senate. 2019/2020 he was awardee of the German Academy Villa Massimo in Rome.

Stefan Keller won several awards, including 3 study prizes of the ‘Schweizer Tonkünstlerverein’, the 1. prize at the SJSO competition 2002, the ‘Kompositionspreis der Landeshauptstadt Stuttgart’ 2004, first prizes at the Hanns-Eisler-Preis 2005 and 2006, composition grants from the Senate of Berlin 2014 und 2017, and a Pro Helvetia Residency in India in 2018. His works have been performed by ensembles like Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Ictus Ensemble, KNM Berlin, Zafraan Ensemble, Ensemble Mosaik, Ensemble ascolta and Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart.
On his first trip to India in spring 2005, Stefan Keller got involved with the North-Indian classical music and has since then learnt to play the Tabla with Prof. Dr. Gert-Matthias Wegner and Dr. Aneesh Pradhan. Up to now he used the tabla in three of his own compositions. In 2012 and 2013 he received a scholarship of the DAAD for a stay in Mumbai.