Keith Balla ’21

A native of Austin, Texas, jazz drummer Keith Balla began playing at the age of 13, and moved to New York at 17 as student of the jazz studies program at Purchase College. In addition to his enriching studies at Purchase, he quickly found himself immersed in the fertile jazz community of New York City, performing at many of New York’s finest jazz venues such as Smalls, Mezzrow, Smoke, The Metropolitan Room, The Jazz Gallery, and Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola. In addition to forging strong musical ties to the myriad of talented young jazz musicians on the New York scene, Balla has also had the good fortune to perform alongside some elder jazz giants such as pianist/composer of Blue Note Records fame, Freddie Redd, the late tenor saxophone master Charles Davis, vocal legend Annie Ross, and famed pianist and bebop pedagogue Dr. Barry Harris. Since 2008, often working under the auspices of the US Department of State with the Ari Roland Quartet, he has performed and conducted workshops in fifty-one countries throughout Africa, Europe, East and Central Asia, and the Middle East. Although professional commitments put his undergraduate studies on hiatus in 2006, Balla returned to Purchase in the fall of 2019 and is scheduled to graduate in the class of 2021.