Keyna Wilkins

Biography

Keyna Wilkins is a pioneering Australian/British composer-musician. Characterised by an ongoing fascination with astronomical phenomena and the incorporation of jazz harmonies, improvisation, electroacoustic elements and dance forms into her compositions, her works are engaging in character, multi-facetted in concept and entertaining in public perception. Published by the Australian music publishing house, Wirripang, her music has been performed around Europe and Australia including the Art Gallery of NSW, the Basement, Seymour Centre, Sydney Conservatorium's Verbruggen Hall by ensembles such as Sydney Conservatroium Sax Orchestra, Spanish Encounters Piano Symposium Ensemble, Sonic Odyssey (UK), Art of Cadencia, Pena Flamenca, Arrebato and Ephemera Trio as well as by pianist Kosmos Lapatas (Greece), flautist Alison Mitchell (UK/Aus), pianist Elodie Sablier (France), singer Eleanore Maurri (France), singer Francesca Vencken (Holland), and Australian musicians such as pianist Natalia Ricci, double bassist Elsen Price, trumpeter Will Gilbert, flautist Angus Mcpherson, cellist Damian de Boos Smith, percusionist Byron Mark, violinist Susan Collins, cellist Tieje Hylkema and guitarist Zane Banks. Having completed her Master of Music Composition from Sydney Conservatorium in 2016 under the supervision of Professor Anne Boyd and Doctor Rosalind Page, she has also studied with Sadie Harrison (Bath Spa University, UK), Jessica Wells (Aus), Martin Wesley-Smith (Aus) and Oliver Gross (Hildesheim Univeristy, Germany).

Keyna is also a versatile flautist and pianist. With international classical training at Bristol Uni and Bath Spa Uni (UK), Hildesheim Uni (Germany) as well as Sydney Conservatorium, she has branched into jazz, experimental live theatre, flamenco fusion and improvisation in a diverse range of ensembles. In 2015 she formed her own trio, Ephemera Trio, and after a series of successful shows around Sydney including rave reviews of their debut album Orbits and Riffs, were invited to feature at the Sydney International Women's Jazz Festival in Nov 2017. In July 2017 she presented her Keys Across the Sky solo piano album as a lecture/recital at the Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference held at Adelaide University. In 2013 Sydney Conservatorium Spanish Encounters Piano Symposium commissioned her to devise one of her own pieces Luna Llena for their ensemble. Also in 2013 Marquez Laundry Theatre Company commissioned her to write the music for the abstract play Fred and Ginger at Sydney Fringe Festival. Other highlights include opening the Adelaide Fringe Festival with Flamenco Australia in 2012 and opening the Picasso Exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW with French noir trio Les Violettes in 2011.