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Kelly Brand is an active performer on the Chicago jazz scene playing frequent club and concert dates. She performs at the Green Mill, the Jazz Showcase, Andy's Jazz Club, Pete Miller's and Katerina's. She played twice on Joe Segal's All Star Caribbean Jazz Cruise and has played a number of times at Ravinia and the Chicago jazz festival both as a leader and sideman.. She was one of ten top Chicago jazz pianists who performed at Symphony Center for Marshall Field's Great Day of Music in 2003
In 1999 Kelly joined Marion McPartland on stage at Ravinia for some impromptu duets and more recently Ms. McPartland invited Ms. Brand to perform with her trio at the legendary Jazz Showcase. .In the liner notes for. Brand's first CD. McPartland offers
"a fine young pianist who play with elegance and sensitivity."
In 2000, 2003 and 2011 Kelly was given composer residencies at Ragdale, a renowned artists' retreat in Lake Forest, Illinois. A number of the compositions on her last two CDs we're conceived at Ragdale
Kelly's 2009 CD, The Door, on the Origin label includes nine of her compositions and one Wayne Shorter song with her lyrics.The Nextet was featured at the Chicago Jazz Festival in 2009. The accomplished musicians in this group are Art Davis on trumpet, Geof Bradfield on saxes, Kelly Sill on bass and Jon Deitemyer on drums. Neil Tesser,in Jazzis says"The latest and best album by Chicago pianist/composer KellyBrand." "good stories told simply and well."
R. Doerschuk in Downbeaat says "This group sizzles and swings through ten Brand originals..
About her 2000 CD, Sister Luna on the Chicago Lakeside Jazz label, on All About Jazz .com said- "Brand's second album is as tastefully cooked as her first." Re. A Dream in a Stone her first release on the Koch/Enja labell,
Lloyd Sachs in the Chicago Sun Times said"Brand has a flowing winsome style as a pianist and an even more impressive harmonic sense as a composer." Jazz Tracks 1997."
Her playing and writing is also represented on compilation CDs including the 90s Koch/Enja release Ladies in Jazzland which includes Abbey Lincoln and Maria Schneider. She is also on the CDs Women who swing Chicago and Mile by Jazz Mile,featuring top Chicago women, jazz artists.
Kelly Brand is an experienced and busy private teacher. She has taught for the Merit School of Music, the Ravinia Music Discovery program, lectured at DePaul University on jazz composition and currently plays and clinics in Chicago schools with Pangaea featuring Ari Brown, Kelly Sill and Avreal Ra . Pangaea's educational concerts are sponsored by the International Music Foundation, an umbrella group of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra
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