Keaton Henson

Keaton Henson is a singer-songwriter, composer, visual artist and poet from South England. A cult hero who has been releasing music for over a decade, Keaton excels in all formats and media in one aspect: total emotional honesty. He is known for his aversion to attention and the spotlight and in this modern world, he has managed to forge a lasting career without touring, social media, or press, preferring to hide away in his rural home creating music.

He has released eight studio albums, five books and played sold-out shows in cathedrals, museums and concert halls all around the world. He’s also exhibited his visual art in galleries internationally, as well as scoring for film, ballet and TV. His orchestral works have been performed at venues such as the Sydney Opera House and the Barbican.

Working at a very young age as a visual artist and illustrator, Keaton’s first album dear… was written and recorded in secret in his bedroom but eventually put online after much persuasion from a friend, leading to its rapid explosion and being played repeatedly on BBC Radio 1. This thrust Keaton uncomfortably into the spotlight and the role of ‘performer’. Trying to find a way to make this work for him, his first shows were performed as a projection from another room into a small doll house, and to select crowds in museums after hours.
During this time, he went to Los Angeles, where he recorded his next record ‘birthdays’ working in Sunset Sound studios with legendary musicians to create a grander sound for the same emotional brutality, as well as releasing his first book of poetry ‘idiot verse’.

The pressures of this renown and his discomfort with performing live led to his third album Romantic Works, an instrumental album dubbed ‘bedroom classical’ written for piano and cello and recorded in his small flat. The success of Romantic Works led to a second road in Keaton’s artistic life opening up, leading to his work writing for film, TV and ballet, most notably his acclaimed scores for the film ‘Supernova’ and the BBC ballet war epic ‘Young Men’, as well as shows for television and companies such as balletboyz and the San-Francisco ballet.

After releasing two more ‘pop’ records, including a dark and genre-pushing electronic album under the alias ‘behaving’, Keaton completely retreated into the shadows working for three years on one epic work: Six Lethargies for String Orchestra. This was first performed at a sold-out London’s Barbican, this 6 movement orchestral piece is a deep exploration into anxiety, trauma, and mental illness.
Working with neuroscientists and psychologists, Six Lethargies was intended to not only express the feelings of anxiety but in the central movement actually trigger the physiological effects of panic in the listener, with a section of the audience being hooked up to anxiety monitors that controlled the venues lighting rig. It was also performed at the National Concert Hall Dublin, and Sydney Opera House, before being recorded and released via Mercury KX in 2019.

Since then, Keaton has released two more albums: the devastating exploration of grief entitled Monument, depicting the loss of friends and loved ones, including his father.

And in 2023 he released House Party, an undeniable collection of pop hooks and feel-good radio hits that explore the idea of fame, validation and performing in which Keaton took on the persona of himself in an alternate universe where he had craved fame instead of shunning it, showing an unhappy pop star in a bright pink suit, lonely in an empty Los-Angeles mansion.

Throughout all of this work, Keaton has also helped other artists by co-writing, producing and arranging. He feels passionately about helping artists get out of their own way and find the joy and catharsis in creation.