Music Series Event

Michael Kaeshammer has invested a lot – countless hours at the keyboard, hundreds of recordings, thousands of live performances, millions of miles in the air and on the road – all in pursuit of a mastery of 12 notes across 88 keys.

Over the course of decades as a professional performer, Kaeshammer has developed a signature blend of classical, jazz, blues, and boogie-woogie with effortless pop hooks for a compelling crossover style that’s immediately engaging yet impressively substantial. Born and raised in Germany, Kaeshammer began performing club, theatre, and festival stages throughout Europe in his early teens and continued on that trajectory after emigrating to Canada’s West Coast with his family in the mid-‘90s. His first studio album, Blue Keys, dropped in 1996 and spurred a consistent sequence of heralded releases and high-profile international performances. Through it all, the world watched as he grew from child prodigy to full-fledged phenom; from unparalleled pianist to virtuosic singer-songwriter.

Those opportunities have been as wide-reaching as the 7x JUNO Award nominee’s subsequent breadth of style, and include: opening slots for the likes of Ray Charles and Anne Murray; stints backing singers like Marva Wright, the late blues queen of New Orleans; recording sessions with rockers Randy Bachman and Colin James; official Olympic Games performances in several world cities; dozens of prestigious awards and nominations; and revered TV spots, including 2020’s highly-praised PBS special Boogie On The Blues Highway and his latest series: a cooking show on B.C.’s CHEK TV.

Many of those experiences have also helped to hone his skills as a vocalist and lyricist to the point that Kaeshammer is now pushing firmly into the realm of pop crossover as exemplified with his latest collection, Turn It Up. Expected in the Spring of 2023, the 10-track collection finds Kaeshammer building on his mastery of the keyboard with deft and dynamic tinges of modern pop. The result is simultaneously his most ambitious and accessible offering to date, its songs and stories both instantly engaging yet deserving of a deep, disarming dive. Fans will soon get to enjoy more fruits from that harvest as Kaeshammer prepares his return to the road with a string of highly anticipated performances across Canada and the U.S. to close out 2022, followed by a tour of Germany in the spring of 2023.