Chief Executive Officer

Kathy Keele

I grew up in Portland, Oregon in a pretty large family. I was the eldest and I had five brothers and sisters before I was eight. We didn’t have a lot of spare money but my mother was very positive and energetic, and constantly creative in keeping us amused. She was our ‘complete home entertainment system’, 1960’s style.

There was always music in the house. Mom played piano by ear… and I’m not talking Chopsticks. She loved throwing herself into pieces like Rimsky Korsakov’s ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ and Debussy’s ‘Claire de Lune’; still my favourite to this day. Mom’s children were her orchestra and her choir: we stomped around the lounge room playing pots and pans while she played Souza marches. We sang all the latest hits together and even our dog joined in with his soprano howl. This was the beginning of my love affair with all kinds of music.

Books were a family passion too. We’d all read together – I suspect that was the only quiet-time Mom had when we were all awake. I remember that, for a while, I was really hooked on stories about the racehorse, Man of War. (He was this underdog horse that just kept winning.) But really, I read anything and everything. In college, I studied languages and in my last year I was reading literature in each of my courses; Spanish, French, Italian and English. Just couldn’t get enough, I guess.

Looking back now, I can see that music and books were the glue that kept my family strong and hopeful; and the fuel that fed our dreams and imaginings. I have been drawn to beautiful and thoughtful expression, in all of the arts, ever since.

The Australia Council is all about celebrating and supporting imagination. The arts are a forum where we can all explore who we are, what excites us and how we want our communities to be. I love the work that we do here. Sometimes I have to pinch myself…