Brad Kella
‘Coming from a council estate in Liverpool to winning a national classical music awards show, it’s not meant to happen. But it’s like I manifested it from these early moments…’
Says Brad Kella, the most surprising young musical prospect of 2024, from his home he shares with his partner and two young children. ‘I was always fascinated with music. Even as a little boy, watching films with my mum, I’d be drawn to the sound effects from the TV. Then later, when I went to high school, I heard a teacher playing the piano, and I remember thinking how amazing it was that someone could do that. It was like something in me clicked.’
There are fewer stories more heartfelt and inspiring in music than Brad’s. Though only at the beginning of a promising career, there have been enough peaks and troughs that would discourage the most hardened artists. Coming through early adversity, being fostered and ending up living on the streets – he went on to win Channel 4’s national televised talent show, The Piano.
Growing up initially in Bootle, a working-class suburb of Liverpool, a problematic family situation led to Brad and his twin brother being placed into foster care at the age of seven. In this more stable environment, Brad’s love of music was given room to blossom. ‘After seeing that teacher play piano in high school, I went home and asked my foster parents – Eve and Frank – if I could have a piano, which just seemed like a pipe dream. At first they got me a keyboard, and I picked it up really quickly. Then there was this government grant available to kids who’d been fostered, which funded an electric piano for me. After that, things progressed quickly. Because me and my twin brother were on our own quite a bit and my foster parents were quite elderly, I’d just spend hours on hours playing. They’d go to bed at about half ten, then I’d just plug my headphones in and play, sometimes until four in the morning, even when I was in school the next day. I had no training, no lessons. But it’s like there’s this muscle memory from somewhere I can’t explain. Straight away I was composing my own songs.’
Even then, it wasn’t plain sailing. Frustrated at his formal education, Brad walked out of every one of his GCSE exams, and subsequently, an application for a scholarship at the prestigious Liverpool School Of Performing Arts (LIPA) was rejected. But his high school persevered on his behalf, and Brad was given a shot at qualifying in exceptional circumstances, after which, he performed one of the only perfect auditions in the school’s history.
A steady period followed at LIPA, but changes in the order of fate meant that his world was again turned upside down, after turning eighteen, when the death of his mother led to a spiral in which he was effectively homeless for a period. Brad and his long-time girlfriend drifted around Liverpool. By chance, he was filmed playing one of the public pianos in Liverpool One shopping centre. The video went viral, pricking the ears of the producers of a new, classical music-based talent show on Channel 4 called The Piano. Somehow, they found him and urged him to audition. ‘I just applied for the show, expecting nothing to come of it. I went into the Manchester audition wearing a tracksuit… not looking like a piano player at all. But they were blown away, they said. I played one of my own songs. Everyone was advising me not to, because other contestants were playing classical standards, and it was a risk. But Lang Lang and Mika, the judges, they loved it. I won the Liverpool heat, then the Manchester heat in a big concert hall, and then, unbelievably, the whole show. And since then, my life has completely changed.