Joseph Keckler is an American singer, musician, performing artist and writer. He writes and performs both absurdist operatic monologues and eerie, emotive ballads. He has also created videos and has authored numerous evening-length performance pieces. Keckler has been hailed as a "major vocal talent... with a trickster's dark humor" whose wide vocal range "shatters the conventional boundaries" by the
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
, was once crowned "best downtown performance artist" in New York City by The Village Voice, and has been described as a subversive originator of "unnerving artistry" who "hardly seems human" in a 2019 review in The Observer.
Keckler is known for his voice, his carefully wrought stream-of-consciousness monologues, songwriting, and in particular for performing in a genre of his own design that fuses operatic vocals, storytelling, and contemporary subject matter. Deemed a "classic" by Indiewire, "Shroom Aria," for instance, is an autobiographical account of a hallucinogenic overdose, relayed as a 7-minute Italian opera. His musical performance have been presented by venues such as Lincoln Center, Adult Swim Festival, Center Pompidou, Museum of Contemporary Art Cincinnati, Third Man Records and others. His full-length performance pieces have been produced by Prototype Festival/Beth Morrison Projects, Opera Philadelphia and FringeArts and others.
In 2019 toured with the band Sleater-Kinney as national support act in The United States after premiering two performance pieces earlier in the year. Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein had seen him perform in LA, an experience that inspired their song "The Future is Here."
In 2017, Turtle Point Press published a collection of Keckler's writing, ''Dragon at the Edge of a Flat World.'' He had also written for Literary Hub, VICE, and Hyperallergic. In a conversation with Olivia Laing in BOMB magazine Keckler describes the book as being composed largely of portraits of eccentric individuals he has known.
In 2015, Keckler made his off-broadway debut in
Dave Malloy's Preludes at the
Lincoln Center Theater 3. He portrayed
Feodor Chaliapin
Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin ( rus, Фёдор Ива́нович Шаля́пин, Fyodor Ivanovich Shalyapin, ˈfʲɵdər ɨˈvanəvʲɪtɕ ʂɐˈlʲapʲɪn}; 12 April 1938) was a Russian opera singer. Possessing a deep and expressive bass voic ...
, a famous opera singer and long time friend to
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and Conducting, conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a compos ...
.
References
External links
Joseph Keckler's Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keckler, Joseph
American male singer-songwriters
Performance art in New York City
American performance artists
American contemporary artists
Living people
Singers from New York City
American male dramatists and playwrights
American operatic basses
American male stage actors
Year of birth missing (living people)
Singer-songwriters from New York (state)