Chad Kelly
Chad Kelly is a British keyboardist, conductor, arranger, and musicologist based in Australia. Active across historically informed performance, opera, contemporary music, and orchestral crossover projects, he has worked with leading ensembles including Opera Australia, the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and Victorian Opera.[1]
Career
Kelly relocated to Australia in 2021 after seasons with the Bavarian State Opera and English National Opera. He joined Opera Australia's music staff in 2022, conducting productions and symphonic programmes across major Australian ensembles.[1]
In Europe and the United Kingdom, he has been principal keyboardist and resident musicologist of the early-music collective Solomon's Knot, performing at Wigmore Hall, the Göttingen Händel-Festspiele and Vienna's Resonanzen Festival.[2]
Reconstruction of Bach's Köthener Trauermusik
In 2025 Kelly premiered a new reconstruction of Johann Sebastian Bach's lost Köthener Trauermusik (Klagt, Kinder, klagt es aller Welt, BWV 1143 / 244a) with Solomon's Knot at Wigmore Hall (8 May 2025) and at the Tage Alter Musik Regensburg festival (7 June 2025).[3][4] The reconstruction draws on music from the St Matthew Passion and Laß, Fürstin, laß noch einen Strahl (BWV 198) and was recorded for broadcast by Deutschlandfunk Kultur.[4][5]
Collaboration with King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard
Kelly arranged the orchestral components of the band's 2025 album Phantom Island, also performing on piano.[6] He conducted their accompanying UK and European Orchestral Tour, including the Royal Albert Hall in London, and the Australian orchestral tour later that year.[7][8][9] NME and the ABC's Double J described the collaboration as a "striking orchestral expansion" of the band's sound.[7][10]
Goldberg Variations Reimagined
Kelly's 2023 collaboration with Rachel Podger and Brecon Baroque on Bach: Goldberg Variations Reimagined (Channel Classics) re-imagined the work for chamber ensemble.
- MusicWeb International called it "a strong Baroque sensibility ... avoiding tricksy orchestration."[11]
- Continuo Connect described it as "imagining how Bach himself might have transformed the Goldbergs for a chamber ensemble."[12]
- Planet Hugill noted its "colourful, vivid reinvention ... idiomatic and stylistically apposite."[13]
- Presto Music praised its "varied instrumental juxtapositions and their resultant sonorities."[14]
Education
Kelly studied at the University of Cambridge and the Royal Academy of Music. He served as Lector in Music at Trinity College, Cambridge and was elected Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM). He lectures at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the University of Melbourne.[15]
Selected discography
- Phantom Island (2025) – King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – orchestral arranger, piano (KGLW Records)[6]
- Bach: Köthener Trauermusik (2025) – reconstruction, music direction (recorded for Deutschlandfunk Kultur)[4]
- Bach: Goldberg Variations Reimagined (2023) – Rachel Podger & Brecon Baroque – arranger, harpsichord (Channel Classics)[11]
- Tutta Sola (2022) – Rachel Podger – arranger (Channel Classics)[14]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Chad Kelly – Melbourne Symphony Orchestra". Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
- ↑ "Solomon's Knot – Wigmore Hall". Wigmore Hall. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
- ↑ "Solomon's Knot: Bach's Trauermusik – Wigmore Hall". Wigmore Hall. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Tage Alter Musik Regensburg 2025 – Trauermusik". Tage Alter Musik Regensburg. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
- ↑ "Brand New Bach – Solomon's Knot announcement". Solomon's Knot. 30 June 2024. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Phantom Island – King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard". King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard Official Site. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Skinner, Tom (1 April 2025). "King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard announce 2025 UK and European orchestral tour". NME. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
- ↑ "King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Royal Albert Hall 2025". Royal Albert Hall. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
- ↑ "Phantom Island Orchestral Tour". Ticketek Australia. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
- ↑ "Feature Album – King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard 'Phantom Island'". Double J (ABC). 22 June 2025. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 "Bach: Goldberg Variations Reimagined – Review". MusicWeb International. November 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
- ↑ "Bach's Goldberg Variations Reimagined – Feature". Continuo Connect. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
- ↑ "The Goldberg Variations Reimagined – Concert Review". Planet Hugill. 3 December 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Bach: Goldberg Variations Reimagined – Product Details". Presto Music. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
- ↑ "Review – 'Messiah' brings Baroque warmth to Canberra". Canberra City News. 10 December 2023. Retrieved 25 October 2025.
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