Biography
Johannes Keller is a Swiss keyboardist, harpsichord player, organist, and music researcher specializing in microtonal and historical tuning systems. He is particularly known for his work on chromatic and enharmonic keyboard instruments and for his collaborations in both early music and contemporary experimental composition.
He grew up in Eastern Switzerland and is currently based in Basel.
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Education
Keller studied at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, following private studies with Andreas Schweizer and Naoki Kitaya. He earned a diploma in early music with harpsichord as his main instrument under Jörg-Andreas Bötticher in 2008, and a Master of Arts in figured bass and ensemble direction with Jesper Christensen and Andrea Marcon in 2010.
He received several awards in youth music competitions, including a sponsorship prize from the Lions Club Basel (2009) and a cultural promotion prize from the Canton of Thurgau (2010). In 2010 he was admitted to the “Akademie Musiktheater heute” of the Deutsche Bank Foundation.
Artistic career
Keller is a co-founder of the basso continuo ensemble Il Profondo and the duo L'Istante with violinist Anaïs Chen.
He regularly collaborates with conductor Andrea Marcon, including work as assistant in opera productions at Theater Basel, Oper Frankfurt, Dutch National Opera, Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. He has also worked as assistant in Baroque opera with Christian Curnyn (Oper Frankfurt and Staatstheater Stuttgart) and Michael Form (Theater Heidelberg and Oper Frankfurt).
He has participated in numerous recordings for labels including Deutsche Grammophon and others, and has performed with ensembles such as La Cetra, Venice Baroque Orchestra, and Les Siècles. He has also appeared as guest musician with the Freiburger Barockorchester, Berlin Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and hr-Sinfonieorchester.
He is a member of the music theatre company La Cage.
Since 2014 he has been a board member of the Forum andere Musik Thurgau.
Research
Keller’s research focuses on chromatic and enharmonic keyboard instruments and tuning systems extending beyond 12-tone equal temperament. This includes historical performance practice of 16th- and 17th-century music as well as experimental reconstruction of historical temperaments.
He has collaborated with contemporary composers such as Caspar Johannes Walter, Vito Žuraj, and José María Sánchez-Verdú, and has worked with ensembles including Ensemble Modern.
From 2015 to 2017 he led the research project Studio31 at the Hochschule für Musik Basel and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, focusing on the reconstruction of keyboard instruments with 31 and 36 divisions of the octave.
Since 2020 he has been a member of the SNF research project “Vicentino21”, led by Martin Kirnbauer.
Teaching
Since 2013 Keller has been a lecturer in intonation and tuning systems at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He is also a visiting lecturer at the Universidad Central in Bogotá, where he teaches basso continuo, performance practice, and chamber music.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.