ABOUT
At the age of 25, Keval was appointed Lecturer of Lied at the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki. Here, he is responsible for coaching singers and pianists, and training voice-piano duos in song interpretation. In addition, he leads the planning, development, and implementation of all art song activities in the department of Vocal Arts. One of the youngest professors in the institution’s history, this appointment reflects Keval’s gift as an inspiring communicator, educator and enabler, and is testament to the thorough knowledge of voices and vocal repertoire which he has already amassed.
Keval’s passion for voices and vocal coaching arose from his studies with the renowned teacher Audrey Hyland, who first invited him to be a pianist at the North Sea Vocal Academy in Denmark in 2014, where he trained each summer for four years. Here, and later at the Royal Academy of Music, London, Keval worked intensively on the art of voice coaching, and upon graduation, he immediately started work as a vocal repertoire coach at the Royal Academy.
Keval’s gifts as a teacher have already led to invitations to teach at the Royal College of Music, London, the Royal Danish Academy of Music, Copenhagen and the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. He has also taught at Cambridge University and the Royal Academy of Music’s Junior Academy. Keval’s students have won places on Young Artist programmes including La Monnaie Academy and the National Opera Studio, have been prize winners at national
competitions including the Helsinki Lied Competition and the Timo Mustakallio Competition, and have won places at major conservatories across Europe.
Teaching style
Keval’s teaching style, whether working with singers or pianists, is founded on the principle that great music-making is possible only when an artist feels identification and ownership of the material, something which comes from understanding and internalising all of the music’s details, and seeing behind the written page to find the expressive intentions and motivations which inspire each phrase. Keval strives to give his students the confidence to unlock their imaginations and communicate their ideas about music through performance, by building an interpretative strategy which stems from a thorough understanding of the music’s construction, the interplay of text and music, and to see what possibilities are engendered through this understanding.
Teaching initiatives
As part of his vision for developing Lied education at the Sibelius Academy, Keval has launched a song recital series, Soiva Kieli, of which he is Artistic Director, and has started new courses on creative programming and the future of art song in the 21st century. In August 2022 he will lead the Sibelius Academy’s first Summer Lied Academy, teaching voice-piano duos from across Europe, alongside a faculty of renowned performers and educators including Soile Isokoski, KS Andreas Schmidt and Richard Stokes.
Keval also works privately as a piano teacher and vocal coach, and can be contacted here.