Keval Shah
Pianist
Keval Shah has quickly established himself at the forefront of a new generation of collaborative pianists. Since 2020, he has been Lecturer of Lied at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki, an appointment which made him the institution’s youngest professor, and he now divides his time between running the Academy’s song programme and appearing in recital at venues and festivals across Europe, as well as maintaining an increasingly busy schedule as a guest teacher, artistic curator and broadcaster.
Engagements in the 2023/2024 season include recitals at Wigmore Hall, the Hugo Wolf Akademie, Stuttgart, Oxford International Song Festival, Leicester International Music Festival and Oulu Music Festival, collaborating with artists including Louise Alder, Iryna Kyshliaruk, Theodore Platt and Tomi Punkeri. Recent highlights include a recital at Wigmore Hall with Karita Mattila, performances of Winterreise with Roderick Williams, and Saariaho songs with Anu Komsi, in the presence of the composer, as well as a residency with Dame Imogen Cooper and Henk Neven as a scholarship holder of the Imogen Cooper Music Trust.
Keval is a laureate of multiple international song competitions including 1st Prize at the 13th International Art Song Competition Stuttgart, 2nd Prize at the Copenhagen Lied Duo Competition, both with Theodore Platt, and winning the Oxford Lieder Young Artist Competition with Michael Mofidian.
Away from the concert platform, Keval regularly presents programmes on BBC Radio 3 and the BBC World Service. In Spring 2022, he hosted a three-part series on song and chamber music, titled ‘The Art of Accompaniment’, and most recently he presented a documentary about the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho for the BBC World Service. Keval is the founder and artistic director of the Sibelius Academy’s Soiva Kieli recital series, and curator of Lied recitals at Helsinki Seriös, Finland’s premier international chamber music series.
In addition to teaching at the Sibelius Academy, Keval has taught at the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Music, the Royal Danish Academy of Music, and the Academy of Music and Opera at Mälardalen University, Sweden. This season he returns to the Norwegian Academy of Music for a series of Lied masterclasses, and will be a guest artist at the Juilliard School, New York.
Updated 28/09/2023
