(Saskia) Max(well) Keller writes about classical music and queerness.

A nonfiction reader for A Public Space, Keller has published in The Nation, Out, Out Traveler, The Provincetown Independent, Provincetown Arts, Parterre Box, Early Music America, and forthcoming from Brooklyn Rail. From 2021 to 2022, they were the Independent’s arts editor, winning a first-place award for the arts section from the New England Newspaper and Press Association.

Raised on Cape Cod, Keller holds a B.A. in music and art history from Harvard, and an M.M. in musicology from the University of Edinburgh. In the fall, they will be starting a Ph.D. in musicology at the CUNY Graduate Center. Currently Brooklyn-based, Keller writes the substack Poison Put to Sound, and is working on Organologies, an essay collection about the cello and the trans body.

Their proudest achievement, however, is getting a driver’s license at the age of 24.

Photo by Brad Fowler

“I was taught that a good writer takes a complex topic and reduces it to its most essential elements. Working at the Independent, I’ve learned that a good editor takes that and reduces it even more. For me, the hallmark of good writing is clarity and conciseness …

Maybe that’s why I’ve always found issues of identity to be challenging. While we try to reduce it to terms, or honor it with pronouns, identity is unavoidably messy and emotionally complicated.”

— “Self-Editing,” Provincetown Independent

Photo by Sara Hinterlong
Photo by Sara Hinterlong

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Writing

“Keller is creating a living archive of what’s happening at the intersection of queerness and classical music in NYC right now, in a way that the traditional press is missing entirely.”

— Danielle Buonaiuto, soprano and arts administrator 

The Future of Classical Music Is Queer

The Nation