Paul Austin Kelly
Encyclopedia
Paul Austin Kelly is an American opera
tenor
and former rock musician who also writes, records and performs music for children.
He was born in Kingston, New York
.
in New York
and the Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut
. Kelly sang an eclectic mix of rock
, pop music
, folk
and jazz
although it wasn’t until he went to college that the operatic potential of his voice was discovered. His light lyric tenor has been in worldwide demand ever since.
(Almaviva in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Lindoro in Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri
), the Royal Opera
at Covent Garden (Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia) and the historic La Scala
in Milan, Italy (Tamino in Mozart's The Magic Flute
, Narciso in Rossini's Il Turco in Italia
, Tonio in Donizetti's La fille du régiment
)
Kelly has earned particular acclaim for his performances in the operas of Italian composer
Gioacchino Rossini
. The role of the dashing Count Almaviva in Rossini's The Barber of Seville
has become his signature role ever since his debut with the Rossini Opera Festival
in Pesaro
, Italy
in 1995. Recent career highlights include his critically acclaimed Opera Ireland debut in Dublin as the dashing prince in Rossini's La Cenerentola
(Cinderella), and his debut at the famed Concertgebouw in the Netherlands
in a concert performance of Verdi's Jerusalem.
Kelly is a featured artist on the prestigious Opera Rara
music label and can be heard on such recordings as the Rossini Three Tenors, Donizetti's La Romanzesca e l’uomo nero and Zoraida di Granata. He also performs on the new Opera Rara recording of Giacomo Meyerbeer's L’Esule di Granata.
in southern England. It was while performing with the nearby Glyndebourne Opera early in his career that he became enamored of the local area and soon decided to settle there with his wife Carol. He still returns frequently to his native USA. Recent Stateside opera appearances have brought the American tenor to Florida Grand Opera where he reprised the role of the Count Almaviva as well as to the Pittsburgh Opera, Kentucky Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival. He is also familiar to opera audiences throughout the United Kingdom and has recently sung with the Royal Opera, the Welsh National Opera and the Opera Holland Park in London. Kelly has also made numerous live performances on BBC
Radio.
. In what was perhaps his most inspired choice of musical collaborator, Kelly provided music and vocals for poems composed by primary school children from across the UK chosen as winners of the first Walking Oliver Poetry in Song Contest. The aspiring songwriters had the thrill of hearing their own written work professionally performed and released on the Walking Oliver CD appropriately entitled Dreams.
Making quality music for kids that parents can enjoy as well has been the Walking Oliver label's mission from the start. It also gave the songwriter in Kelly the chance to bring together his many and varied musical influences while affording him a musical autonomy that opera singers rarely experience.
In 2008 Paul Austin Kelly recorded "The Song Is You" with legendary British jazz pianist and producer Kenny Clayton. The CD which takes its title from the Hammerstein/Kern song, offers new interpretations of time-honoured popular music from the Great American Songbook by such composers as Rodgers and Hart, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. The CD showcases popular standards including "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" and "Manhattan" by Rodgers and Hart. Living American composers David Frishberg and Billy Joel are also featured on updated versions of "My Attorney, Bernie" and "New York State of Mind" respectively. Original songs on the CD include "Settle Down With You" by Mr. Kelly and "The Memory of You" by Mr. Clayton.
In 2009 Paul Austin Kelly returned to the world of children's music with "Where Did The Dinosaurs Go?" his latest CD recording on the Walking Oliver label scheduled for release on March 17, 2009. With an emphasis on teaching children some of life's important lessons and awareness of modern day social concerns, "Where Did The Dinosaurs Go?" features Walking Oliver's trademark diversity of musical styles and new original song titles such as "Life is for Learning," "Life Recycle" and "Bones in the Body." The title track is a musical answer to any curious child who ever asked "Where Did The Dinosaurs Go?"
In August 2009 Paul Austin Kelly's CD "Where Did The Dinosaurs Go?" won an iParenting Media Award for Outstanding Audio.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
and former rock musician who also writes, records and performs music for children.
He was born in Kingston, New York
Kingston, New York
Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, USA. It is north of New York City and south of Albany. It became New York's first capital in 1777, and was burned by the British Oct. 16, 1777, after the Battles of Saratoga...
.
Musical beginnings
When Kelly began his music career he was more likely to be found holding an electric guitar than an opera score and fronted bands with names such as Legend, Black Dog and Guilded Spice. He attended Rondout Valley High SchoolRondout Valley High School
Rondout Valley High School is a public school located in Accord, NY, United States. The population is made up of 9th through 12th graders of the Rondout Valley School District, encompassing Marbletown, Rosendale, and Kerhonkson. The High School opened after the construction of the school in 1968...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and the Hartt School of Music in West Hartford, Connecticut
West Hartford, Connecticut
West Hartford is a town located in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States. The town was incorporated in 1854. Prior to that date, the town was a parish of Hartford....
. Kelly sang an eclectic mix of rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, pop music
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
, folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
although it wasn’t until he went to college that the operatic potential of his voice was discovered. His light lyric tenor has been in worldwide demand ever since.
Opera performances
Mr Kelly has sung with many of the world's most prestigious opera companies including the Metropolitan OperaMetropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
(Almaviva in Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Lindoro in Rossini's L'Italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca...
), the Royal Opera
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
at Covent Garden (Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia) and the historic La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
in Milan, Italy (Tamino in Mozart's The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
, Narciso in Rossini's Il Turco in Italia
Il turco in Italia
Il turco in Italia is an opera in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The Italian-language libretto was written by Felice Romani...
, Tonio in Donizetti's La fille du régiment
La fille du régiment
La fille du régiment is an opéra comique in two acts by Gaetano Donizetti. It was written while the composer was living in Paris, with a French libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Jean-François Bayard.La figlia del reggimento, a slightly different Italian-language version , was...
)
Kelly has earned particular acclaim for his performances in the operas of Italian composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
Gioacchino Rossini
Gioacchino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...
. The role of the dashing Count Almaviva in Rossini's The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
has become his signature role ever since his debut with the Rossini Opera Festival
Rossini Opera Festival
The Rossini Opera Festival is an opera festival held in August of each year in Pesaro, Italy, the birthplace of the opera composer Gioachino Rossini....
in Pesaro
Pesaro
Pesaro is a town and comune in the Italian region of the Marche, capital of the Pesaro e Urbino province, on the Adriatic. According to the 2007 census, its population was 92,206....
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
in 1995. Recent career highlights include his critically acclaimed Opera Ireland debut in Dublin as the dashing prince in Rossini's La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...
(Cinderella), and his debut at the famed Concertgebouw in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
in a concert performance of Verdi's Jerusalem.
Kelly is a featured artist on the prestigious Opera Rara
Opera Rara
Opera Rara is a British record label, founded in the early 1970s by Americans Patric Schmid and Don White to promote concerts of rare and/or forgotten operas by Giacomo Meyerbeer and Donizetti and such other "bel canto" composers as Giovanni Pacini, Saverio Mercadante, and Federico Ricci.The...
music label and can be heard on such recordings as the Rossini Three Tenors, Donizetti's La Romanzesca e l’uomo nero and Zoraida di Granata. He also performs on the new Opera Rara recording of Giacomo Meyerbeer's L’Esule di Granata.
Residence
Kelly currently lives in LewesLewes
Lewes is the county town of East Sussex, England and historically of all of Sussex. It is a civil parish and is the centre of the Lewes local government district. The settlement has a history as a bridging point and as a market town, and today as a communications hub and tourist-oriented town...
in southern England. It was while performing with the nearby Glyndebourne Opera early in his career that he became enamored of the local area and soon decided to settle there with his wife Carol. He still returns frequently to his native USA. Recent Stateside opera appearances have brought the American tenor to Florida Grand Opera where he reprised the role of the Count Almaviva as well as to the Pittsburgh Opera, Kentucky Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival. He is also familiar to opera audiences throughout the United Kingdom and has recently sung with the Royal Opera, the Welsh National Opera and the Opera Holland Park in London. Kelly has also made numerous live performances on BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Radio.
Recording
In 2003 Kelly launched the Walking Oliver children's music label, a daring and unique move for an opera singer. Within a year the label won the National Parenting Publications Award organization (NAPPA) in the children's music category for the CD Hello Michael Rosen. The recording featured the poetry of children's literature icon Michael Rosen set to original music by Kelly. Other milestone recordings for Walking Oliver include Unleashed on British Isles, a fresh interpretation of British folk tunes sung by Kelly accompanied on guitar by the renowned British guitar player Richard DurrantRichard Durrant
Richard Durrant, Dip RCM, ARCM, FLCM is an English guitarist & multi-instrumentalist. He studied guitar, cello, and composition at the Royal College of Music and has since performed a mix of all guitar styles - classical, pop, jazz, folk. He also runs the indie acoustic LongMan Records company...
. In what was perhaps his most inspired choice of musical collaborator, Kelly provided music and vocals for poems composed by primary school children from across the UK chosen as winners of the first Walking Oliver Poetry in Song Contest. The aspiring songwriters had the thrill of hearing their own written work professionally performed and released on the Walking Oliver CD appropriately entitled Dreams.
Making quality music for kids that parents can enjoy as well has been the Walking Oliver label's mission from the start. It also gave the songwriter in Kelly the chance to bring together his many and varied musical influences while affording him a musical autonomy that opera singers rarely experience.
In 2008 Paul Austin Kelly recorded "The Song Is You" with legendary British jazz pianist and producer Kenny Clayton. The CD which takes its title from the Hammerstein/Kern song, offers new interpretations of time-honoured popular music from the Great American Songbook by such composers as Rodgers and Hart, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. The CD showcases popular standards including "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" and "Manhattan" by Rodgers and Hart. Living American composers David Frishberg and Billy Joel are also featured on updated versions of "My Attorney, Bernie" and "New York State of Mind" respectively. Original songs on the CD include "Settle Down With You" by Mr. Kelly and "The Memory of You" by Mr. Clayton.
In 2009 Paul Austin Kelly returned to the world of children's music with "Where Did The Dinosaurs Go?" his latest CD recording on the Walking Oliver label scheduled for release on March 17, 2009. With an emphasis on teaching children some of life's important lessons and awareness of modern day social concerns, "Where Did The Dinosaurs Go?" features Walking Oliver's trademark diversity of musical styles and new original song titles such as "Life is for Learning," "Life Recycle" and "Bones in the Body." The title track is a musical answer to any curious child who ever asked "Where Did The Dinosaurs Go?"
In August 2009 Paul Austin Kelly's CD "Where Did The Dinosaurs Go?" won an iParenting Media Award for Outstanding Audio.