January 2026 News
In December, my new setting of the Sussex Carol, which is my first composition as Composer-in-Residence with Te Deum, was premiered in Kansas City. I had a lot of fun composing this—I take the tune on all kinds of wild harmonic and rhythmic adventures which makes it quite difficult to sing, but the choir and their fantastic conductor Matthew Shepard rose to the challenge and did an amazing job! (Click the image below to watch the performance.) Now to start on my next piece for their Memorial Day concerts in May!
I've been busy doing more arrangements for the violinist Midori as well. I recently finished an unaccompanied violin version of the famous Trepak (Russian Dance) from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker which she plans to play as an encore after future orchestral concerto performances. It was quite a challenge to condense the music from a whole orchestra down to a single violin! I'll be making more such solo encore arrangements for her in the near future. In November, I also completed a new arrangement of Bartok's Romanian Folk Dances for Violin and beginner/intermediate level Orchestra that she will be performing with various youth orchestras around the country, starting first with the South Bend Youth Orchestras in Indiana next month!
On January 31, I'll be in Tallahassee, FL to hear my doctoral dissertation composition Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Beloved Community? a Concertino for Orchestral Winds premiered by the Florida State University Wind Orchestra as part of their New Music Festival. This is a very special work to me—the title is borrowed from the title of the final book written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., although I added the word "Beloved" as the composition is a musical depiction of King's vision of the Beloved Community—the ideal world we should be striving to live in. I do this by splitting the ensemble into 8 different groups that all play different styles of music, first conflicting and clashing with each other, but eventually learning how to play together to create a more beautiful whole while still maintaining their unique identities. And it is not an easy piece—it gives every instrument and performer a chance to shine and show their abilities! I'm very excited to hear this work I wrote five years ago finally be brought to life!
In October, my family and I travelled up to Burlington, VT for the day to hear the Vermont Youth Orchestra, directed by Mark Alpizar, perform the "Vermont" movement of my Appalachian Trail Symphony: New England. This was the first time any part of the symphony has been performed by a youth orchestra, and how appropriate that they played the "Vermont" movement!
In November, I was a guest on Steve Danielson's Moveable Do Podcast, where he interviews and dives into the music of various living composers. We had a really great chat talking about my musical beginnings, the similarities I see between music and sports, how being a performer impacts my composing, how music can address social issues, the creative process, and more! Have a listen here.
Many of you know that I've been teaching private composition lessons on Zoom for the past several years. I'm excited to announce that I've just launched a new project that will enable me to help more composers improve their compositional skills. I'm calling it the Keane Composition Academy. The academy is a virtual community of composers that includes self-paced composition courses on a variety of topics (compositional technique, creativity, growing a composing career/hobby) as well as the ability to get personalized feedback on composition work during regular masterclasses or posting in the group anytime.