The music of Rob Keeley – born in south Wales in 1960 but immersed in London musical life since boyhood – embraces a wide range of influences. Stravinsky’s angular melodies and Tippett’s buoyant rhythms can be heard in the spiky but bucolic Second Symphony. Keeley readily confesses to an allegiance to Gallic Neo-Classicism in his Flute Concerto and, more surprisingly, reveals a taste for Telemann as the inspiration behind his Triple Concerto, with the ‘Enigma’ Variations of ‘my beloved Elgar’ acting as a model for Keeley’s own recent set of orchestral variations. Among the factors unifying these eclectic stimuli into an individual musical language are a concern for textural clarity and lightness of touch, a fondness for dance and a hint of good humor.
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