Dr. Keillor is an internationally known concert pianist and a Distinguished Research Professor Emerita of Carleton University, Ottawa. With all of the theoretical requirements completed at the age of ten, she remains the youngest person to have ever received the Associate diploma in piano from the Royal Conservatory of Music (Toronto).
Performing in recital and with orchestras throughout North America and Europe, Dr. Keillor has received reviews such as “the musicianship of a sensitive artist and a fine technician”, “remarkable talent as soloist in the Mendelssohn Piano Concerto”, “delighted us with her exquisite touch”, “considerable imagination” and “very adept at the keyboard.”
She was the first female recipient of the doctoral degree in musicology at the University of Toronto. As a pianist and chamber musician Dr. Keillor can be heard on seventeen CDs that have been praised for their impeccable pianism and artistry. One reviewer wrote of Views of the Piano Sonata: “By her careful programming and impeccable pianism, Elaine Keillor, … has made a strong case for the continued value and flexibility of sonata form.”
The first recipient in the category of Arts and Culture of the Canadian Women’s Mentor Awards (1999), she has written many essays for various publications, including on Canadian music for the widely used third edition of Profiles of Canada (2003), edited four volumes in the 25-volume Canadian Musical Heritage series, two in the piano series Performing Our Canadian Heritage, and authored John Weinzweig and His Music: The Radical Romantic of Canada (Scarecrow Press, 1994),and Music in Canada: Capturing Landscape and Diversity (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2006).
A researcher with the Piano Pedagogy Research Laboratory at the University of Ottawa, she has prepared five DVDs on teaching stylistic periods to piano students. Dr. Keillor received the 2004 Helmut Kallmann Award of the Canadian Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centres. She headed the teams that produced Native Drums (2005) (www.native-drums.ca), a comprehensive, educational, and information web site on musical expressions of the First Peoples within Canada, its sequel Native Dance (2007),(www.native-dance.ca) joint projects of Canadian Heritage’s Canadian Content Online Program and Carleton University, and the Inukshuk- and INAC-funded project, www.pathoftheelders.com (2010).