Location: Auckland
Challenge: Blind
Website: www.marakelland.com
Mara Kelland was born fifteen weeks prematurely which left her almost totally blind. When she was seven, she began to study the piano initially through the Suzuki Method. She began to sing seriously when she was twelve and appeared in choirs throughout High School. In 2006 she began to teach herself to play the Irish harp.
Mara is a licensed Simply Music Piano and Musicopolis Play A Story teacher. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from AUT and a Certificate in Freelance Journalism from the New Zealand Institute of Business Studies. Through all her studies, music was her constant companion and is her first love.
She performs regularly at retirement homes and the older persons’ mental health in-patient ward at the local hospital.
She has also performed twice for Love Your Mountain Day and appeared in concerts with the Blind Low Vision Education network NZ Music School. She also teaches the piano and in her free time likes to paint and take photographs.
Mara has been involved with music from an early age, initially studying the piano through the Suzuki Method. She has gained grades in piano and music theory from the Australian Music Examiners Board [AMEB] and the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music [ABRSM].
Mara teaches out of her home studio in Mount Wellington, Auckland. In her spare time she is a voracious reader, a self-taught harpist and folksinger.
Mara Kelland - "Praties They Grow Small"