Garland and Coster

About Kelly Garland

Descended from four generations of Scottish and early Australian colonial musicians, it is not surprising that Kelly has music in her blood. Kelly is a trained singer with an eclectic mix of musical influences and has studied jazz, blues, musical theatre, popular and classical singing under the tuition of Andrea Garing. During her years of study she developed a love of folk songs particularly in the Celtic tradition and is currently working on writing her own selections of folk songs.

A love of dramatic popular singers such as Freddie Mercury of the flamboyant rock group, Queen, and the mysterious Kate Bush, led Kelly to explore the world of musical theatre. She performed with several of Victoria's top non-professional musical theatre companies for many years.

A desire to return to roots music convinced her to abandon her musical theatre past and since then, Kelly has performed as a member of rock band "Reckless Receiver" as keyboard player and backing vocalist, sung backing vocals for The Keepers CD "Listen", performed in Swan Hill at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Torch Relay and recorded two demo CDs ("Flirting" - a tribute to her great grandfather, composer Frederick Augustus Gow Packer, and "Fields of Gold" recorded with Rohan Coster).

Since 2001, Kelly has been performing with Rohan Coster as acoustic duo, Garland and Coster. With Kelly's bell-like vocals together with Rohan's superb guitar playing, this duo make for a pleasant and entrancing listening experience.

About Rohan Coster

In the early stages of his musical development,guitarist Rohan Coster was most heavily influenced by such diverse musicians as John Williams and his band, Sky, as well as Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page. Page's acoustic guitar work led to an exploration of brilliant folk players such as Bert Jansche and Leo Kottke. While subsequent years have led to many other influences by players such as Jeff Beck, Ronnie Jordan and Vernon Reid, Rohan's work with singer Kelly Garland reflects the Celtic and acoustic Blues feel of the earlier artists. Kelly's influence has broadened Rohan's styles to include the likes of Eva Cassidy and Kate Rusby.

Performing well over three hundred concerts with bands, duos and trios over the past eighteen years, Rohan has also co-produced, co-written and performed on the albums "Ignition" (1994) and "Burnt Beyond Recognition" (1995) for the band Keepers of the Flame. Now known as The Keepers, the band has also released three E.P.'s "Life Through Windows" (1999), "Listen" (2002) and "Couldn't Stand" (2003). Rohan was also co-producer and co-writer for these CDs.