Zoë Clare Keating (born February 2, 1972) is a Canadian-American cellist and composer once based in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, now based in

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

Music career

Keating performed from 2002 to 2006 as second chair cellist in the

cello rock Cello rock is a subgenre of rock music characterized by the use of cellos (as well as other bowed string instruments such as the violin and viola) as primary instruments, alongside or in place of more traditional rock instruments such as electri ...

band Rasputina. She is featured on

Amanda Palmer Amanda MacKinnon Palmer (born April 30, 1976) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and performance artist who is the lead vocalist, pianist, and lyricist of the duo the Dresden Dolls. She performs as a solo artist and was also a memb ...

's debut solo album, ''

Who Killed Amanda Palmer ''Who Killed Amanda Palmer'' is the first solo studio album by American singer-songwriter Amanda Palmer. The album was largely recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, with collaborator Ben Folds and was released on Roadrunner Records (also home to The ...

''. In her solo performances and recordings Keating uses live electronic sampling and repetition in order to layer the sound of her cello, creating rhythmically dense musical structures. , her self-produced album ''One Cello x 16: Natoma'' reached #1 on the

iTunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

classical charts four times, and "Into the Trees" spent 47 weeks on the

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

classical chart, peaking at #7. She is the recipient of a 2009 Performing Arts Award from

Creative Capital Creative Capital is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization based in New York City that supports artists across the United States through funding, counsel, gatherings, and career development services. Since its founding in 1999, Creative Capital has co ...

. Keating's songs have been featured in various commercials, TV shows, films, video games, and dance performances including

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

's White Lotus,

Amazon Prime Amazon Prime (styled as prime) is a paid subscription service of Amazon which is available in many countries and gives users access to additional services otherwise unavailable or available at a premium to other Amazon customers. Services inclu ...

Mammals A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three middle e ...

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS (an abbreviation of its original name, Columbia Broadcasting System), is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainme ...

Elementary Elementary may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * ''Elementary'' (Cindy Morgan album), 2001 * ''Elementary'' (The End album), 2007 * ''Elementary'', a Melvin "Wah-Wah Watson" Ragin album, 1977 Other uses in arts, entertainment, an ...

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

's Crisis,

So You Think You Can Dance ''So You Think You Can Dance'' is a franchise of reality television shows in which contestants compete in dance. The first series of the franchise, created by '' Idols'' producers Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe, premiered in July 2005 and has ...

MTV MTV (an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on ...

Teen Wolf ''Teen Wolf'' is a 1985 American coming-of-age comedy film directed by Rod Daniel and written by Jeph Loeb and Matthew Weisman. Michael J. Fox stars as the title character, a high school student whose ordinary life is changed when he discover ...

Dateline A dateline is a brief piece of text included in news articles that describes where and when the story was written or filed, though the date is often omitted. In the case of articles reprinted from wire services, the distributing organization is ...

, Have You Heard from Johannesburg, The Day Carl Sandburg Died, Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth,

The Retrieval ''The Retrieval'' is a 2013 American drama film written and directed by Chris Eska. The film stars Ashton Sanders, Tishuan Scott, Keston John, Bill Oberst Jr., Christine Horn and Alfonso Freeman. The film was released on April 2, 2014, by Varia ...

, The Witness, and

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

's Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science. In January 2011, Keating won the award for Contemporary Classical Album from The 10th Annual Independent Music Awards. In July 2011, Keating was named a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum. She performed at the closing ceremony of the forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland in January 2014 and 2016. On September 1, 2013, the

LA Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper in the U.S. and the large ...

published an

Op-Ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page," is a type of written prose commonly found in newspapers, magazines, and online publications. They usually represent a writer's strong and focused opinion on an issue of relevance to a targeted a ...

she authored. It discussed the positive and negative effects of her

revenue on her Do-It-Yourself performing career. Keating composed the score to A&E's '' The Returned'' with

Jeff Russo Jeff Russo (born August 31) is an American composer, songwriter, guitarist, vocalist and music producer, and one of the two founding members of the rock band Tonic. He is also a founding member of the Americana band Low Stars. Russo is also k ...

, and the pair composed music for season 2 of ''

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

'', which aired in 2016 on

WGN America WGN America was an American subscription television network that operated from November 9, 1978 to February 28, 2021. The service was originally uplinked to satellite by United Video Inc. as a national feed of Chicago independent station WGN-T ...

. Keating's song "Lost" is the theme music to the podcast

On Being ''On Being'' is a podcast and a former public radio program. Hosted by Krista Tippett, it examines what it calls the "animating questions at the center of human life: What does it mean to be human, and how do we want to live?" This podcast should ...

. In 2020, Keating composed the score to ''The Edge of All We Know'', a documentary about

black holes A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...

. In 2021, during the height of the

coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

, Keating co-composed, along with longtime collaborator Jeff Russo, the score to the

movie ''

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

'', a film adaptation of the

Tony Award The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...

-winning play. On July 13, 2021, Keating and Russo's score for ''Oslo'' was nominated for a 2021

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the year, each with their own set of rules and award catego ...

for Outstanding Music Composition For A Limited Or Anthology Series, Movie Or Special. Keating is one of the few artists to publish their revenue from streaming services, in order to help others get a better deal.

Personal life

In 1972, Keating was born in

Guelph, Ontario Guelph ( ; 2021 Canadian Census population 143,740) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as The Royal City, it is roughly east of Kitchener, Ontario, Kitchener and west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Ontario Highway 6, ...

, Canada to an English mother and an American father. She began playing the cello at the age of eight and attended

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College (SLC) is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York, United States. Founded as a Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in 1926, Sarah Lawrence College has been coeducational ...

in New York. Prior to 2005, she worked as an

information architect Information architecture (IA) is the structural design of shared information environments; the art and science of organizing and labelling websites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability and findability; and an emerging ...

. She worked on projects at the now defunct Perspecta, Inc., and the

Research Libraries Group The Research Libraries Group (RLG) was a U.S.-based library consortium that existed from 1974 until its merger with the OCLC library consortium in 2006. RLG developed the Eureka interlibrary search engine, the RedLightGreen database of bibliogr ...

(now part of OCLC) and the

Database of Recorded American Music The Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM) is an online resource providing streaming media access to musical works from 26 independent record labels, along with their liner notes, album art, and other related materials. History The databa ...

. In March, 2010, Keating announced via her website that she was expecting her first child with her husband, Jeff Rusch, in May. Rusch was diagnosed with stage 4

cancer Cancer is a group of diseases involving Cell growth#Disorders, abnormal cell growth with the potential to Invasion (cancer), invade or Metastasis, spread to other parts of the body. These contrast with benign tumors, which do not spread. Po ...

in May, 2014, and was admitted to the hospital for emergency treatment. Days later, Keating and Rusch received a letter denying coverage for this hospital stay by their insurance company,

Anthem An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to sho ...

. After local media publicized the story, Anthem Blue Cross reversed its decision, telling Keating in a phone call that the hospital stay would be covered. Rusch died on February 19, 2015. Keating continues to advocate for patients, data portability and the simplification of medical insurance. In October 2016 she was invited to participate in a panel discussion at the Frontiers Conference with President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

, Riccardo Sabatini and

Kafui Dzirasa Kafui Dzirasa (born 1978) is an American psychiatrist and Associate Professor at Duke University. He looks to understand the relationship between neural circuit malfunction and mental illness. He was a 2019 AAAS Leshner Fellow and was elected Fe ...

, moderated by Atul Guwande.

Discography

Solo

*2004 - ''One Cello x 16'' (EP) *2005 - ''One Cello x 16: Natoma'' *2010 - ''Into the Trees'' *2018 - ''Snowmelt'' (EP)

Soundtracks

*2001 - ''

I Am a Sex Addict ''I Am a Sex Addict'' is a 2005 autobiographical comedy film by American independent director and screenwriter Caveh Zahedi. Presented in semi-documentary style, the film chronicles Zahedi's own sex addiction and its impact on his life, relatio ...

'' - composer, additional music *2005 - ''

Frozen Angels Frozen may refer to: * the result of freezing Films * ''Frozen'' (1997 film), a film by Wang Xiaoshuai * ''Frozen'' (2005 film), a film by Juliet McKoen * ''Frozen'' (2007 film), a film by Shivajee Chandrabhushan * ''Frozen'' (2010 film) ...

'' - composer, cello *2007 - ''

The Devil's Chair ''The Devil's Chair'' is a 2007 British horror film. It premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. Plot The film begins with Nick West lighting a cigarette in the dark and introducing himself to some unknown audience. He proceed ...

'' - composer, cello *2008 - ''

Ghost Bird ''Ghost Bird'' is a 2009 documentary film centered on the small town of Brinkley in Arkansas, United States. It deals with the ivory-billed woodpecker, a species that is possibly extinct but whose continued existence remains highly debated. S ...

'' - composer, cello *2008 - '' Not Forgotten'' - cello *2008 - '' The Secret Life of Bees'' - cello *2010 - ''

Breaking Bad ''Breaking Bad'' is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan for AMC (TV channel), AMC. Set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the series follows Walter White (Breaking Bad), Walter White (Bryan Cran ...

'' - recorded cello version of the theme by David Porter *2010 - '' (1)Doubt, (2)Nostalgia Trio, (3)Frozen Angels, (4)Coda, (5)Legions(War), (6)The Last Bird, (7)Arrival, (8)Legions(Aftermath)'' - for writing and performing in The House of Suh film credits *2010 - ''

The Conspirator ''The Conspirator'' is a 2010 American mystery historical drama film directed by Robert Redford and based on an original screenplay by James D. Solomon. It is the debut film of the American Film Company. The film tells the story of Mary Surrat ...

'' - cello *2011 - ''

Warrior A warrior is a guardian specializing in combat or warfare, especially within the context of a tribal society, tribal or clan-based warrior culture society that recognizes a separate warrior aristocracy, social class, class, or caste. History ...

'' - cello *2012 - ''

Elementary (TV series) ''Elementary'' is an American procedural drama television series that presented a contemporary update of Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes. Created by Robert Doherty and starring Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock Holmes and Lucy Liu as ...

'' - composer, cello *2015 - ''

Felizes para Sempre? ''Felizes para Sempre?'' (English: ''Happily Ever After?'') is a Brazilian television miniseries directed by Fernando Meirelles and written by Euclydes Marinho. It aired from 26 January to 6 February 2015 on Rede Globo. It is a remake of ''Quem ...

'' - composer of "Tetrishead", opening and ending theme *2015 - '' The Returned'' - composer, producer, cello, keyboards, vocals, guitar *2016 - ''

Manhattan (TV series) ''Manhattan'' (sometimes styled ''MANH(A)TTAN'') is an American drama television series based on the project of the same name that produced the first atomic weapons. While some historical figures appear in ''Manhattan'', most characters are fic ...

'' - composer, cello *2016 - ''

The Witness (2016 video game) ''The Witness'' is a 2016 puzzle video game developed and published by Thekla, Inc. Inspired by ''Myst'', the game involves the exploration of an open world island filled with natural and man-made structures. The player progresses by solving p ...

'' - composer of "Escape Artist" used in the promotional video. *2017 - ''

SMILF ''SMILF'' is an American sitcom starring, created, written, and directed by Frankie Shaw. It was based on her short film of the same title. The series premiered on Showtime on November 5, 2017. The series' name, SMILF, is a play on the term " M ...

'' - composer, cello *2020 - ''

The Edge of All We Know ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The' ...

'' - composer, cello, piano *2021 - ''

'' - composer, cello *2022 - '' Searching: Our Quest for Meaning in the Age of Science''

Dance Works

* 2008 - '' Llebeig with the Valencia Ballet'' - composer and performer, cello * 2014 - '' Boulders and Bones with ODC Dance'' - composer and performer, cello * 2021 - ''

Swing Low with Joffrey Ballet Swing or swinging may refer to: Apparatus * Swing (seat), a hanging seat that swings back and forth * Pendulum, an object that swings * Russian swing, a swing-like circus apparatus * Swing ride, an amusement park ride consisting of suspended seat ...

'' - composer

With Mike Gordon and Leo Kottke

*2020 - ''Noon''

With Curt Smith

* 2010 - '' All is Love''

With Pomplamoose

* 2009 - ''

Always in the Season Always may refer to: Film and television * ''Always'', a 1985 film directed by Henry Jaglom * ''Always'' (1989 film), a 1989 romantic comedy-drama directed by Steven Spielberg * ''Always'' (2011 film), a 2011 South Korean film, also known as ''O ...

With Halou

* 2008 - '' Halou''

With Amanda Palmer

* 2008 - ''

'' * 2010 - '' Amanda Palmer Performs the Popular Hits of Radiohead on Her Magical Ukulele'' * 2015 - '' Bigger on the Inside'' * 2018 - ''

Big Yellow Taxi covered by Amanda Palmer, Zoe Keating, Sean Ono Lennon, John Cameron Mitchell Big or BIG may refer to: * Big, of great size or degree Film and television * Big (film), ''Big'' (film), a 1988 fantasy-comedy film starring Tom Hanks * ''Big'', a 2023 Taiwanese children's film starring Van Fan and Chie Tanaka * ''Big!'', a ...

With Mar

*2007 - ''The Sound''

With Rasputina

*2004 - '' Frustration Plantation'' *2005 - '' A Radical Recital''

With John Vanderslice

*2002 - '' Life and Death of an American Fourtracker''

With Tarentel

*2001 - ''The Order of Things''

With Dionysos

*1999 - ''Haiku''

References

External links

* *
An Exclusive interview with Zoe Keating at Bar Hop Sessions
*

Jad Abumrad Jad Nicholas Abumrad (; born April 18, 1973) is an American radio host, composer, and producer. He is the creator of the syndicated public radio program and podcast '' Radiolab'', which he hosted alongside Robert Krulwich. He is currently Di ...

interviews Keating interviews Keating] fo
Talks at Google
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Radiolab"Zoe Keating unabridged"
-('' Wired (magazine), Wired'' interview)
Performing 2 pieces
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keating, Zoe 1972 births Canadian rock cellists Living people Musicians from Guelph Rasputina (band) members Sarah Lawrence College alumni