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Shanthi Kelley

Jazz Improvisation - Voice


kelley_shanthi@roberts.edu

SHANTHI KELLEY (Voice) - Shanthi is a 2001 Summa Cum Laude graduate from Roberts Wesleyan University with a B.S. degree in Vocal Performance. Upon graduating, she furthered her voice studies with Kathryn Cowdrick and Constance Fee. She is currently living in Rochester, NY where she has taught in her own voice studio for the last 23 years.

Shanthi maintains a steady performance career singing with The Rochester Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra, Frank Torchio and the Russell Scarbrough Jazz Orchestra and Frank’s Rat Pack. In 2011 she made her debut performance at the Rochester International Jazz Festival as the lead singer with the Rochester Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra and has performed almost every year since then.

Throughout her life Shanthi has been an active soloist in churches around the area and frequently serves as guest worship leader at Greystone Church in Fairport and Shepherd’s Heart Christian Fellowship in Greece. She enjoys teaching vocal master classes to area schools, church choirs and worship teams and conducts the children's choir at Open Door Baptist Church.

She has been a lead singer on Holland America Cruise Lines, performed with NIK Entertainment Company and Gateswingers. She has recorded commercial jingles for the Greater Rochester/ Buffalo area, including a commercial for CBS airing locally on Super Bowl Sunday 2004. Shanthi has been selected as a soloist in the Rochester area from a young age singing “Ora Pro Nobis” from Mozart’s “Regina Coeli” with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and "Rejoice Greatly" from Handel’s “Messiah” with Roberts Wesleyan University Community Orchestra. She recorded a children’s album and later recorded her first solo album in high school entitled “Shanthi: Unfailing Love”. She was a soloist in Roberts Wesleyan University's “Jazz and Dessert” with the (late) Joe Santora, and played the roles of “Rosie” in Bye Bye Birdie, “Nanette” in the opera Cather County and “Eve” in the musical Children of Eden, all local productions in Rochester.