Shanthi Kelley
Jazz Improvisation - VoiceSHANTHI KELLEY (Vocals) - Shanthi is a 2001 Summa Cum Laude graduate from Roberts Wesleyan College with a B.S. degree in Vocal Performance. Upon graduating, she furthered her voice studies with Dr. Wanda Brister, Kathryn Cowdrick and Constance Fee. She is currently living in Rochester, NY where she has taught in her own voice studio for the last 20 years.
Shanthi maintains a steady performance career singing with Frank Torchio and the Russell Scarbrough Jazz Orchestra, Frank’s Rat Pack, and The Rochester Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra. 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.
She records commercial jingles for the Greater Rochester/ Buffalo area, including a commercial for CBS airing locally on Super Bowl Sunday 2004. 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.
She has been a lead singer on Holland America Cruise Lines, performed with NIK Entertainment Company and Gateswingers. 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 College 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 College’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.