Hans Keller and Beyond: Towards Creative Performance and Listening

Coco Tomita, violin
Viviane Plekhotkine, violin
SongHa Choi, viola
Caterina Isaia, cellos

This event presents Keller’s famous method of wordless musical analysis (‘Functional Analysis’) in the context of his teaching of performance. After Keller retired from the BBC, Yehudi Menuhin asked him to take charge of string quartets at the Menuhin School, which he did until his death in 1985, alongside teaching at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Malcolm Singer (former Music Director of the Menuhin School, who taught there when Keller was on the staff) will introduce Keller the man and musical thinker, together with Keller’s biographer Alison Garnham. Then current Music Director Oscar Colomina i Bosch, pianist David Dolan and violinist Levon Chilingirian (whose quartet was coached by Keller) will work with a Menuhin School student quartet on Mozart’s String Quartet in D minor K. 421, presenting Keller’s first Functional Analysis of the work, and their own creative response – revealing Keller’s impact beyond his own time.