Award-winning composer and pianist, Daniel Kelly has developed a unique and personal approach to jazz, free improvisation and modern chamber music. Daniel has collaborated in performance and on disc with a wide range of artists, including Michael Brecker, Lauryn Hill, Ray Barretto, Don Byron, Bobby Sanabria, William Parker, John Zorn, David Murray, Donny McCaslin, David Binney, Brad Shepik, Mark Turner, Iva Bittova, Candido, Wu Man, Oliver Lake, Joel Harrison, Nestor Torres, Briggan Krauss, RJD2, Harvie S, the genre-busting modern chamber ensemble the Bang on a Can All-Stars and many others. Daniel has toured throughout the US, Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa and Central America. In addition to the several CDs he has recorded as sideman, he has recorded highly acclaimed CDs as a leader, including World and Duets with Ghosts, which features Daniel’s unique approach to electronic sound manipulation and sampler. Daniel’s third CD Portal is an improvised solo piano suite that arose from his continuing series of improvised solo piano concerts. His fourth CD, Emerge, released on Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records, has already appeared on Top CDs of 2009 lists. His quartet has received the Chamber Music America/ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award.

Daniel has exhibited his commitment to arts education and young audiences by performing in schools and in artistic multi-media works for family audiences. His most notable collaborator is storyteller David Gonzalez. In addition to performing in hundreds of schools, they have toured to performing art centers throughout the US and Canada and the Royal National Theatre in London. They developed the multi-media theatrical work The Frog Bride, which premiered at the New Victory Theater on Broadway and incorporated Daniel’s music with the music of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev and video images of paintings by Wassily Kandinsky. It was nominated for a Drama Desk Award in 2006. Daniel composed music for a new collaboration called Wounded Splendor, a multi-media work that is part of the University of Maryland’s “Performance as Politic/Artist as Activist” 2009 season bringing together music with video, poetry and monologues inspired from interviews with activists and experts in the environmental movement. David and Daniel have also been Lincoln Center Institute Repertory artists from 2002-05 and 2008-10.

Daniel serves as the artistic director of the music based non-profit organization Connection Works. He has organized and helped present workshops for young people and a series of concerts featuring artists such as Joe Lovano, Mark Turner, Larry Grenadier, Jeff Ballard, John Abercrombie, Billy Hart, Dafnis Prieto, Wycliffe Gordon, Dave Liebman, Anat Cohen, Steve Coleman and Five Elements and many others.

Daniel was chosen by the US State Department to be a Jazz Ambassador, performing a six-week tour to India, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia, Vietnam and Bangladesh. This highly prestigious honor is only awarded to a few groups each year that travel to developing countries to perform concerts and workshops.

Daniel's talents as film composer can be heard in the films The Receipt, Suzana’s Dreams, Below the Belt (awarded Best Film of the Oregon Film Festival) and the feature film The Legend of Johnson Roebling.

Visit him at www.danielkellymusic.com and www.myspace.com/danielkellymusic.

P R E S S

“Daniel Kelly is a pianist and composer who confidently splits the difference between murky history and sleek progressivism”
– Nate Chinen, New York Times

“…powerfully moving.”
– Steve Smith, Time Out New York

"…original and adventurous."
– Howard Mandel, Author of Future Jazz and Miles, Coltane & Cecil

"Gifted pianist Daniel Kelly is always a delight and his solo work is outstanding . . . topnotch . . . he performs in excellent form."
– Lee Prosser, Jazz Review

About Portal CD:

'Portal' is an inspired solo piano effort, a 17-part suite of improvised sections that flow superbly and cover a great deal of terrain…. I was most impressed with the wide range of feelings, textures, intersecting lines and ideas that emerge throughout this wonderful disc…. I found this disc to be immensely rewarding on a variety of levels.
– Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery
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Kelly admires artists across genres who have embraced the polyphonic, orchestral nature of the grand piano, plumbing melodic possibilities, harmonies and dissonances, multiple layers and cross-references, rhythms and counterpoint to map otherwise inaccessible sonic spheres and mental spaces. But he imitates no one.
– Howard Mandel, Author of Future Jazz and Miles, Coltane & Cecil
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On his third album, Portal, Daniel Kelly steps into the breach with 17 wholly improvised pieces—some less than a minute long, others more than five. They add up to a complete and well-formed thought, imbued with mystery as well as technical rigor.

Kelly's sweeping arpeggios and reiterative left-hand accompaniments affirm a strong classical influence….There are flickers of Lisztian romanticism in "Turbulence," Ravelian impressionism in "Removing the Veil of Illusion" and Bartókian folklore in "Magic Circle Dance."
– David R. Adler, Time Out New York

About Emerge CD:

A U.S. State Department Jazz Ambassador who's been successful in chamber music and film scoring in addition to most forms of jazz can make pretty much whatever record he wants to. For Emerge, Daniel Kelly chose to make a highly varied, challenging but listenable record.
– Pico, Something Else Reviews
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Downtown keyboard wiz, Daniel Kelly returns with another fine disc.… I am most impressed with this CD.

Each piece a different structure or strategy, from the over-the-top to the more sublime and each song is memorable in its own way. 'Emerge' doesn't sound like any other piano trio I've heard, making it hard to pin down yet no less engaging to savor.
– Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery

Other quotes:

"Pianist Daniel Kelly shows great character and depth-definitely a talent to watch."
– John Davis, Latin Jazz Club

"Daniel Kelly has an uncanny ability to get inside and around the percussive heat and deliver exciting moments on the piano."
– Jazz Zine.com

"fist-pounding keyboard attack that has the crowd shouting like a revival meeting . . . masterful evocative performance!"
– Tom Ineck, www.bermanfoundation.org

"When pianist Daniel Kelly breaks loose with an exhilarating performance set up by the entire group, attention must be paid . . . [a] performance made possible by Kelly's finely attuned senses of touch and texture."
– Don Williamson, JazzReview.com

"Kelly is quite a marvel throughout, whether spitting out burning runs or flowing lyrical elegance, but nowhere does he shine more than on his original, "Momentàneo". His rich, yet slightly wintry hues reflect contemplation and beauty."
– Jay Collins, OneFinalNote.com

"Daniel Kelly's composition is complex and entertaining."
– Jazz Review.com