Cello & Bass
Keith Stanfield
A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London, UK, Keith served as a teaching assistant to Professor Remus Azoitei from 2011-2013. As a founding member of Kansas City’s Opus 76 Quartet, he has been invited to give masterclasses at Juilliard, The Royal Academy of Music, and various other colleges. Keith's students have participated at all levels of the Kansas City Youth Symphony, district and state orchestras in both Kansas and Missouri, and have won music scholarships to various colleges. Some of Keith’s students also compete in local competitions frequently.
As a member of the Opus 76 Quartet, and one of a tiny handful of professional classical musicians from Western Samoa, violinist Keith Stanfield performs over 50 concerts a year, and has recently recorded all eighteen Beethoven String Quartets, the Schubert Quintet, Mendelssohn’s op.44 no.1, the Brahms F minor Piano Quintet. Recordings of a number of other celebrated works, including the "Six Quartets Dedicated to Haydn" by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, will take place in 2021.
Outside of the Quartet, Keith has recorded Mozart Violin Concertos 3 & 4 and works by Johann Sebastian Bach for solo violin (available on iTunes). Upcoming concerto performances with orchestra include violin concertos by Paganini and Beethoven. He is currently Concertmaster of the Kansas City Civic Orchestra and the Kinnor Philharmonic Orchestra, and will appear as Guest Concertmaster with The Kansas City Ballet in Fall 2021.
Keith gives 10 recitals a year at venues throughout the American Midwest. Recent series have featured works by Ludwig van Beethoven, Clara & Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms. A recent performance was reviewed in K.C. Arts Beat as “full of romantic passion..played with intensity..conveyed with authority.. [Brahms’s 3rd Sonata was] lovingly played, a sense of nostalgia and heartache convincingly portrayed.. an exciting and convincing performance.”
Keith is a former soccer player, who represented Western Samoa in the 2010 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers. He played five matches for the country (scoring two goals) before retiring to focus on the violin. He has coached soccer in the UK and the USA.
Founding the Opus 76 Quartet in 2017, he joined The Friends of the Opus 76 Quartet Foundation's administration as Executive Director in 2021. He is the main host of the Opus 76 Quartet's "Keeping Score" podcast, and has written for a number of publications including The Strad, The Catholic Herald, Adamah Media and The Shawnee Mission Post.
Keith lives in the United States of America in Kansas City, teaches students privately, and coaches The Opus 76 Sunrise Quartet - one of the Foundation's free mentoring initiatives for talented young high school musicians from the local area.
He started playing the violin with Alison Apley aged 3 and is an alumni of the Suzuki Violin Method, Purcell School of Music (UK), the Royal Academy of Music (UK) and CU Boulder (USA). He made his recital debut aged 6, and appeared as a guest soloist aged 10 on the BBC TV show: "Brian Connelly's Crazy Christmas." Winning a number of solo violin competitions and prizes, he has performed in many of the world's finest concert venues, which include Wigmore Hall, The Royal Festival Hall and Royal Albert Hall (London), The Philharmonie (Berlin) and Teatro alla Scala (Milano).
Violin coaches included the late Erik Huston, Remus Azoitei and Karoly Schranz.
