Pianist Kelsey Walsh is an enthusiastic supporter of new music, and enjoys performing contemporary works both for solo piano and with a chamber ensemble. She currently co-directs the After Everything ensemble, a mixed octet that performs exclusively contemporary music. In the past, she has served as co-director of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music‘s Hot Air Music Festival, and has had the privilege of working with several composers to create new works, including the twitter-based #armada project. Kelsey is currently working on a large-scale project covering the piano music of the influential 20th century composer Henry Cowell.
Ms. Walsh has been a top-prize winner in numerous local competitions including the Kensington Symphony’s Young Soloist Competition and the Crestmont Conservatory’s Honors Piano Competition. She has also been honored with the Santa Cruz County Youth Symphony’s Outstanding Musician Award, and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Janet Rose piano scholarship and Marina Grin Award for “fine pianism, good citizenship, and selfless giving to the musical community.”
A native of Pescadero, a small coastal town south of San Francisco, Kelsey Walsh has been performing and teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area for more than a decade. She has presented recitals in La Petite Trianon Theater in San Jose, the Historic Ralston Hall Ballroom in Belmont, the Historic Native Son’s Hall in Pescadero, as well as community outreach programs including annual holiday concerts at the Koret Family House in San Francisco and recitals in assisted living facilities around the Bay Area. Ms. Walsh has been a featured soloist with the Kensington Symphony Orchestra, the Coastside Community Orchestra, and the San Jose Youth Chamber Orchestra. In addition, she has performed during several literary and cultural events including the grand re-opening ceremony for the Belmont Library, poetry readings at the Woodside Library and special events in Belmont’s Weigand Art Gallery.
Besides her work as a solo performer, Ms. Walsh has collaborated with members of the San Francisco Symphony including principle horn player Robert Ward, the Bay Brass, the EDLOS, the Peninsula Symphony, the Summer Brass Institute at the Menlo School, and several local choirs. As a member of the Peninsula Youth Orchestra, She participated in both the European Youth Orchestra Festival and the New York Youth Orchestra Festival presenting concerts in Florence, Aix-en-Provence, Valencia, and in Carnegie Hall in New York. Ms. Walsh’s past teachers include Sharon Mann and Daniel Glover, and she has participated in solo and ensemble master classes with Anne Epperson, Mitchell Sardou Klein, Dr. Paula Fan, Hanny Schmidt-Weiss, Thomas LaRatta, Valentin Surif, and Richard Faith.
While not playing the piano, Kelsey Walsh enjoys writing program notes, which have been featured in concert programs across the country from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music to Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center. She also teaches a music appreciation class at Salem Lutheran Home in Oakland, and has successfully founded a noontime concert series at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (the noontime concerts continue under student direction today). In her spare time Ms. Walsh pursues her interest in geology, enjoyes cycling around San Francisco, practices the Japanese martial art Aikido, and builds scale models of WWII aircraft. Her latest model project was a balsa/tissue construction P38L Lightning with a 40-inch wingspan.
spitfire – 24″ wingspan
