Keats attended
Yale University as an undergraduate, where he studied with
Quincy Porter and
Paul Hindemith. He completed his MA at Columbia University, where he studied with
Otto Luening and
Henry Cowell. He attended the
Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Hamburg as a
Fulbright Scholar before returning to America. Keats received his PhD from the
University of Minnesota, where he studied with
Dominick Argento and
Paul Fetler. He also won two
Guggenheim Fellowships (1964–65, 1972–73), an
NEA grant, and was a
Fulbright scholar (1954–55, renewed 1955-56). He also studied composition at Yale with
Henry Cowell. He taught at
Antioch College from 1957 to 1975, and the
University of Denver's Lamont School of Music from 1975 to 1999. He also taught at the
Aspen School of Music and was visiting professor at the
University of Washington from 1969 to 1970. He died on April 27, 2018, at the age of 88. ==Important works==