Kayden Kelly, piano

Meet Kayden

Kayden performs on Show 427.

Kayden Kelly (piano), 15, is from Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a tenth grader at Albuquerque Academy and studies piano with Fabio Bidini and HyeJin Kim through the pre-college program at Colburn Music Academy in Los Angeles.

Kayden has been playing piano since he was five and also played violin in the Santa Fe Youth Symphony program for seven years. He has attended summer programs and festivals at Juilliard in Switzerland, the Mozartium International “Young Excellence” Academy in Austria, Curtis Summerfest for piano and violin, PianoTexas (formerly the Cliburn Institute), Amalfi Coast Festival and Perugia MusicFest. He has participated in masterclasses with Piotr Paleczny, Olga Kern, Anne McDermott, Dmitri Alexeev, and Jerome Lowelthal.

At age 11, Kayden was selected to be a part of the Sphinx Performance Academy for violin at Curtis Summerfest for four years. At age 13, he was one of the youngest of 20 international piano students to be to be selected for the Curtis Young Artists Summer Program. He has been a part of the Curtis Mentor Network program for piano for two years.

Kayden has performed in seven different countries: Costa Rican National Theater for 600 people, including the Costa Rican vice president; Alion Baltic Music Festival in Latvia, Estonia and Finland; Lindlar Music Festival in Germany; and in Salzburg, Austria, and Italy.

Kayden performances have received press from the German newspaper in Lindlar as well as being featured on New Mexico KRQE 13 TV and the local classical KUNM radio station. He performed twice for an audience of 800 people at the Lensic Theater in Santa Fe, New Mexico for the 2019 New Mexico Music Platinum Awards, Mendelssohn Piano Concerto No1. in G minor (3rd movement) with a quartet for the music production, Prodigies. He performed Beethoven piano concerto No.3 (first movement) for the Lensic “Ghostlight Sessions” online program and also this past summer at Perugia MusicFest.

Outside of music, Kayden enjoys reading fantasy novels, playing chess, swimming, and painting mini figures.