Karel Boehlee started playing the piano at a very young age when his father brought jazz music into his life. Karel’s mother played classical music on the piano for fun, his brother loved afro-american music like James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Earth wind and fire, Aretha Franklin etc. while his sister mainly listened to popmusic. All this created the right environment to gather the many music styles that formed him into the musician he is nowadays. Karel learned to play the piano by listening, not through lessons. He started to realise that he wanted to be a professional musician when he was in his early twenties.
In 1983 he studied at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. Since then Karel Boehlee played with Toon Roos, Martijn van Iterson, Peter Tiehuis, Ferdinand Povel, Theo de Jong, Jesse van Ruller, Simone Pormes, Toots Thielemans, Trijntje Oosterhuis, Roberta Gambarini, Lo van Gorp, Hein van de Geyn, Martijn Vink, Gino Vannelli, Joris Roelofs, Ben Herman, Philip Catherine, Hans van Oosterhout, Frans van der Hoeven,Tom Beek, Fay Claassen, Peter Erskine and many more. With most of these people he made album-recordings. For the japanese label ‘Keystone Records’ he recorded eight CD’s along with Hein van de Geyn and Hans van Oosterhout. Last year Karel toured through Japan and Korea with this trio. Plans are being made for a new CD-recording with funky instrumental material.
Karel can be booked along with one or a few of our soloists or with one of his bands, in various music styles.
Video
Check out the videos below for an impression of some special musical collaborations.
