Brendan Keller-Tuberg is an emerging bassist and composer from Canberra, Australia. Having graduated from the Australian National University in 2018, he has established himself as a regular performer in the region, having played with Miroslav Bukovsky, John Mackey, Paul Grabowsky, Dave Eggar and Christian Howes among many others during his studies. He received First Prize and People’s Choice in the ANU Chamber Music Competition in both 2014 and 2016 for performances with numerous jazz ensembles as well as the Canberra Experimental Music Studio.

 

In August 2017, he released a debut album of original compositions for piano trio. Featuring ANU alumni Tate Sheridan and Daniel Faber, it was released to a sold-out audience at the Street Theatre in Canberra and consequently featured on ABC Jazz. Writing for BMA Magazine, Geoff Page praised the album, stating that ‘judg[ing] from this new, eponymous CD by young local bassist Brendan Keller-Tuberg, [the piano trio’s] possibilities are far from exhausted.’ It would go on to be one of BMA’s top releases of 2017.

 

From 2018 until March 2020, Brendan lived in the United States to pursue a masters' degree on scholarship from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. During this period, he performed with Walter Smith III, Emmet Cohen, Dayna Stephens, Greg Ward, John Raymond, June Lee, and Vince Mendoza, among others. In January 2020, he travelled with IU’s Wallarab Jazz Ensemble to New York to compete in the Lincoln Center’s inaugural Jack Rudin Jazz Championship, who placed 2nd among ten of the finest jazz programs in the US.

 

A Freedman Jazz Fellowship nominee of 2019, Brendan is in demand as both a sideman and leader. He is a member and co-leader of Crossroads Quintet, who released their debut album ‘Intertwined’ in May 2020 on Midwest Crush Music, and can also be heard on Amanda Gardier’s latest release ‘Flyover Country’. Brendan is also the 2021 Composer in Residence for WAYJO (West Australian Youth Jazz Orchestra).

Brendan is a current doctoral student and Associate Instructor at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University. His sophomore album In Spite Of It All, featuring Julien Wilson, Wilbur Whitta, Ashley Ballat, Lewis Pierre-Humbert and others, will be released on November 5 via Shifting Paradigm Records.