EarlyMusicNews.Org

"Born in Sardinia, Paola Erdas was awarded her diploma in harpsichord at the Conservatory of Venice in 1991. From 1992 to 1996, thanks to a five-year scholarship, she studied under Kenneth Gilbert at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. Since 1996 she has been a member of the ensemble L'Apothéose, recording for the Stradivarius label.

In the same year, together with recorder virtuoso Lorenzo Cavasanti, she founded the JANAS ensemble. The group, which collaborates with the theatre and historical dance specialist Deda Colonna, soon became multi-instrumental, with the sound of the harpsichord augmented by voice,winds,strings and percussion , in performances combining poetry, dance and music of the late Renaissance and Baroque periods in the Mediterranean area.

Particularly interested in the early harpsichord repertoire she combines her intense performing activity with her wide musicological interests. For Ut Orpheus Edizioni she has published the first modern edition of the "Pièces de Luth en Musique pour jouer sur le Luth et le Clavessin" by Perrine (Paris 1680), which she has also recorded, for the Stradivarius label, on the Delin harpsichord (Tournai 1768) from the collection of K.Gilbert. Always fascinated by the Spanish repertoire, she has studied this topic in depth with careful research into ancient sources and treatises. In 1997, she recorded the solo CD "Libro de Cifra Nueva" by Luys Venegas de Henestrosa on another harpsichord in K.Gilbert's collection, the Italian F. A. 1677. ...

She is presently working on a critical edition of the "Pièces de Clavessin" by N. A. Lebègue, the first volume of which has been already been published by Ut Orpheus Edizioni and recently recorded by her on the Stradivarius label.

Paola Erdas teaches thorough-bass at the Conservatory of Trieste. " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 22, 2008 | Hits: 352

"Organist-Choir Director, St. Peter's-on-the-Canal Episcopal Church, Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts Pianist and Harpsichordist -- all-Ravel recital in Fall River in the spring, upcoming programs of Pachelbel's domestic music and the astonishing keyboard music of Baroque Valencia. Piano and harpsichord tuner and technician -- specialising in historical tunings Founder-Director of the Fall River Fipple Fluters, an amateur recorder-playing group, and the Delight Consort, a professional Renaissance and Early Baroque ensemble. " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 26, 2008 | Hits: 289

"Professor, music theory, harpsichord: B.A., M.A. in Music Education, University of Northern Iowa, Ph.D. in Music Theory, University of Iowa; seven years public school music teaching in Iowa; first played harpsichord under Robert Donington in the University of Iowa collegium musicum, studied in master classes with the French harpsichordist Kenneth Gilbert; performed throughout South Carolina in solo recitals and as a continuo player in many chamber groups, including the South Carolina Philharmonic Orchestra; author of freshman theory text, "Introduction to the Study of Counterpoint" Affiliations: Society for Music Theory, Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society. " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 26, 2008 | Hits: 383

"Edoardo Torbianelli, born 1970 in Trieste (Italy), obtained his diploma for piano and harpsichord at the conservatory of his town. He continued his studies at the "Scuola di alto Perfezionamento Musicale dei Filarmonici di Torino" with Prof. Jean Fassina, at the Royal college of Music at Antwerpen (Belgium), and at the Catholic University of Brabant (Netherlands), where he obtained concert degrees for piano, harpsichord and chamber music.

He developed a keen interest in historical performance practice through partecipation in several specialized seminars and courses and by intensive research of historical sources, concentrating especially on the classical and romantic periods. At the same time he continued university studies in literature and languages.

Torbianelli was a prize winner at the Emmanuel Durlet International Piano Competition in 1993 and 1996 and at the international fortepiano competition in Bruges in 1995. Since then he has performed with critical acclaim in Italy, Belgium, Netherland, Germany, Switzerland, Slovenja and Denmark at many international festivals including: Festival van Vlaanderen, Festival de Wallonie, Flamish Opera, Royal Philarmonic of Flanders, Schubert Society Roskilde, Gesellschaft Freunde Alter Musik Basel, Musica Franconia and Musica Antiqua Konzerte Nurnberg, Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Festival di Musica Antica Urbino, Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna.

He has performed on the historical instruments in the collections of: Deutsches Museum Muenchen, Germanisches Nationalmuseum Nurnberg, Beethoven-Haus Museum Bonn, Museum Vleeshuis Antwerpen. " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 26, 2008 | Hits: 400

"Marieke Spaans (b. 1972) strives for the maximum in musical expression and dialogue, combined with a thorough knowledge of early music practice. The result is a sparkling performance, full of spontaneity and deep emotions, driven by a boundless passion for the music of the 17th and 18th century.

Last student of Gustav Leonhardt, in 1997 she received her Concert and Teaching diplomas, after five years of study with this grand master of the harpsichord. Coming from this school of harpsichord playing, the keys to her performances are a refined and dynamic touch, historical awareness and respect for the composer and his intensions. Besides her harpsichord studies she studied organ and church music with Hans van Nieuwkoop and Wolfgang Zerer. She attended many master-classes, and received important impulses from musicians such as Lars-Ulrik Mortensen and Jesper Christensen. Currently she is also concentrating on fortepiano.

She was prizewinner at several renowned competitions, in 1997 at the harpsichord competition of NDR Hamburg, in 2000 at the Musica Antiqua Competition of the Flanders Festival in Bruges and at the Competition “Premio Bonporti” in Rovereto.

Marieke Spaans performs in Europe as soloist and as partner of the outstanding violinists John Holloway and Anton Steck. Her recording of W.A.Mozart's opus 1 together with Anton Steck received many rewards of the press (f.ex. "an absolute discografical highlight!" – www.klassik.com)

Marieke Spaans is Professor for Historical Keyboard Instruments at the Institute for Early Music of the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Trossingen (Germany). Before her appointment in Germany she taught at the Conservatories of Amsterdam (1994-2000) and Rotterdam (1997-2000). She teaches regularly at courses all over Europe."

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Added on: Apr 26, 2008 | Hits: 1026

"Mrs. ELŻBIETA STEFAŃSKA was born in Cracow, Poland, on September 7, 1943. Her extraordinary musical talent having become aparent already at an early age, she received her first piano lessons from her father Ludwik Stefański, professor at the Music Academy Cracow.

In 19.. she graduated from the National Music University Cracow in the harpsichord class. Her teacher was the famous German Professor Hans Pischner from Berlin. In the following years she improved her musical proficiency at various international master classes in Siena and Weimar, under the guidance of eminent European harpsichord player - such as Zuzanna Ruzickova or Ruggiero Gerlin. Her first two prizes were awarded to her at the Ancient Music Competition, Łódź, for her piano and harpsichord performance of baroque works. 1965 she won the First Prize at the International Music Competition in Geneva, where she was also honoured with the special Henri Ghez reward as the best harpsichard player. Among her awards and prizes are also the City of Cracow Prize for actistic achievements, awarded to the Baroque Trio of which she was a member and "LAUREL OF CBACOW MUSIC LOVERS" granted to her "in testimony of their gratitude and appreciation for having made classic music widely known".

Elżbieta Stefańska is a Professor at the Music University of Cracow where she leads the harpsichord class and where, from 1981-1990, she was Head of the Department of Clavecin and Ancient Instruments. Since 1990 she has frequently been invited to give concerts and to play for TV and radio recording in Japan, South Corea and Taiwan. In the Mozart Year she played 18 Mozart sonatas (6 CDs) using an ancient Mozart piano for the Pony Canyon sonographic company in Tokio. For the same company she also recorded numerous works by J.S. Bach composed for clavecin. " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 26, 2008 | Hits: 357

"Pawel Siwczak, harpsichordist & early keyboard specialist, winner of the 8th Broadwood Harpsichord Competition (2007) and the Sir Anthony Lewis Memorial Prize (2006, founded by Musica Britannica Trust for the performance of early English music).

Pawel performs actively as a soloist and with chamber ensembles. He has played in orchestras conducted by Trevor Pinnock, William Christie, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Laurence Cummings and Simon Standage, and his touring activities took him to countries such as France, Holland, Sweden, Malta, Russia, England and Poland.

Pawel’s ensemble, Four Temperaments (previously known as Donum Musicum), has been awarded a prestigious Leverhulme Fellowship at the Royal Academy of Music for 2007/2008. The group will act as an ensemble-in-residence at the Academy, working alongside current students in various areas of performance. Pawel’s other group, Triologue, has been offered a place on the Early Music Live! scheme being part of the Brighton Early Music Festival. Both groups won Early Music Prizes at the Academy, in 2006 & 2007 respectively. Pawel has also started The King’s Private Musick, an ensemble aiming at popularising some little known repertoire of early vocal-instrumental music. ... " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 26, 2008 | Hits: 430

"Terence Charlston is a specialist performer on early keyboard instruments and widely acknowledged for his engaging and expressive performances. He has been described as one of Britain’s leading early keyboard players and his sympathetic command of original instruments has made him a frequent performer at collections of early keyboard instruments all over the world.

Terence Charlston was born in Blackpool, Lancashire. From an early age, he was drawn to the sound and repertoire of old instruments, especially the harpsichord, which he first experienced through recordings and BBC Radio 3 broadcasts. He studied piano and organ from childhood and later took degrees in Oxford and London, specialising in early keyboard performance. As a solo harpsichordist and chamber musician he has toured extensively within Europe, as well as to Japan and the USA. He is well known to chamber music audiences, especially for his work with the quartet London Baroque with whom he gave over 400 concerts worldwide between 1995 and 2007. ... " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 26, 2008 | Hits: 397

"Paul Simmonds, born in London in 1949, was brought up in South Africa where he completed his initial musical studies (Bachelor of Music) at the Witwatersrand University with organ as principal instrument. The award of a scholarship enabled him to concentrate on the harpsichord under Stanislav Heller at the Freiburg Conservatoire in Germany. He continued his studies with Colin Tilney in London, with subsequent tuition from Gustav Leonhardt and Kenneth Gilbert.

After a successful debut at London's Purcell Room in 1979 he embarked on a career as a freelance soloist and continuo player and has performed throughout Europe and beyond. In 1982 he moved to Basel, Switzerland, where he worked for eight years as an organist at one of the city churches. During this time he taught harpsichord and chamber music at the conservatoires of Karlsruhe and Mannheim in Germany, and at Biel (CH) where he also acted as external examiner for harpsichord diploma examinations.

As a continuo player he has performed with many of Europe's leading early musicians. He performs regularly as a duo with the recorder and musette player Marianne Mezger and, with the addition of the gambist Ekkehard Weber, has given numerous recitals with Trio Basiliensis (CD and radio recordings). ... " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 26, 2008 | Hits: 360

"ANNAMARI PÖLHÖ studied harpsichord at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and at the Utrecht Conservatory. In 1989 she received her soloist diploma. Later she has studied with Mitzi Meyerson and Jesper Christensen (continuo-playing). She received her doctor's degree at the Sibelius Academy on French and Italian thorough-bass practise in 1994.

Annamari Pölhö has performed as soloist and chamber musician in Finland and abroad. She is the keyboard player of Battalia ensemble and she plays often with the Sixth Floor orchestra and Avanti!. She has made solo and ensemble recordings for the Finnish Radio and Alba recording company.

Annamari Pölhö works as a teacher at the Sibelius Academy and at the Helsinki Conservatory. Her dissertation about the French and Italian continuo styles has been published in the series of the Sibelius Academy Music Research Centre. " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 27, 2008 | Hits: 303

"Mitzi Meyerson was born into a musical family in Chicago, where she began her concert career at the age of seven. After completing her university and graduate studies in Chicago and Oberlin, she moved to London to co-found the ensemble Trio Sonnerie (with Monica Huggett and Sarah Cunningham), with whom she performed and recorded extensively.

Ms. Meyerson has released over fifty recordings, among them solo albums of Buxtehude, Duphly, the complete works of Forqueray and JKF Fischer, all to excellent critical acclaim. This last, entitled "Musicalischer Parnassus" (MDG), won the Diapason d'Or. Her recent releases include two double-CD sets of Georg Böhm and CB Balbastre (Glossa); both productions were awarded the prestigious Deutsche Schallplatten Kritik prize for the best recordings of the year on an international level. She also released a solo recital of mixed repertoire for the Musik Instrumenten Museum in Berlin, four complete Ordres from the 4th Book of Francois Couperin (Glossa), and a collaboration with Nigel Kennedy and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (EMI). She is currently preparing another double-CD set of Theofilo Muffat for the Glossa label.

In addition to her solo work, Mitzi Meyerson is the founder of "The Bottom Line", a variable ensemble devoted to repertoire for bass and continuo instruments, which appears in major festivals across Europe. The most popular form of "The Bottom Line" is the Berliner Cembalo Ensemble, a group of three to five harpsichords, which has a continually growing repertoire. She is full Professor of Harpsichord at the Universität der Künste in Berlin; this was the very first university to offer the study of the harpsichord, a position created especially for Wanda Landowska. She specializes in working with modern pianists to obtain a baroque-style perspective in the performance of Bach, developing an awareness of articulation, harmonic structure, and many other aspects.

Mitzi Meyerson divides her time between a busy teaching schedule and many concert engagements throughout the world. " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 27, 2008 | Hits: 481

"ANSSI MATTILA began his piano and organ studies in the Helsinki Conservatory. He studied organ, piano, harpsichord and musicology in the Sibelius Academy, Helsinki from 1972 and finished his organ diploma in 1979. He continued harpsichord studies in the Utrecht Conservatory, Holland from 1984 and finished his diploma in 1987. Anssi Mattila has been performing as harpsichordist, organist and conductor in the Scandinavian countries, the Netherlands,Germany, France and Japan among others. He has been steadily working as a harpsichordist and conductor with several Finnish orchestras and is a frequent visitor as a conductor specialising in baroque and early classical music. He founded 1989 The Sixth Floor Orchestra, a Finnish baroque orchestra playing with original instruments. Anssi Mattila is professor of harpsichord and early music in the Sibelius Academy. He has recorded on disc with the Finnish groups The Sixth Floor Ensemble, The Sixth Floor Orchestra and Avanti!. He is also an active writer on music and has made for the Finnish Broadcasting Company besides numerous solo and chamber music recordings also talk programmes. His solo album "URANIA" is from spring 2000. The Music News of the Finnish Broadcasting Company awarded Anssi Mattila and the operatic group "Taite" for their production of the opera "Ulysse" by Jean-Féry Rebel as "The Musical Achievement of the Year 2000". " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 27, 2008 | Hits: 293

"He has based most of his piano and fortepiano activity on the results of his personal research. He gained his diploma at the Conservatorio di Musica di Foggia and his diploma with merit at the Accademia Chigiana of Siena in piano (1984) and in chamber music (1985). Having studied the main piano treatises, he has since concentrated his studies on rediscovering and re-evaluating 19th century Italian instrumental music. His repertoir includes Hummel, Clementi, Dussek, Moscheles, Cramer, Czerny, Kalkbrenner, Ries and Mueller as well as the most representative authors of the 19th century. Thanks to his researches he rediscovered and performed transcriptions of Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart’s sinfonies and concerts by Hummel, Moscheles, Ries, Czerny, Cramer and Clementi. He is curator and member, for Ut-Orpheus in Bologna-urtext, of the scientific committee for Muzio Clementi’s opera omnia, now available in the most important Libraries throughout the world. In 2002, in association with the Italian Society of Musicology (S.I.d.M.), he contributed to the organization of the conference “Muzio Clementi: compositore-(forte)pianista-editore” held in Perugia. He is regularly invited to hold conferences in Conservatories, Istitutes, musical associations and academies such as the Hungarian Academy during the International Conference “From Liszt to Ligeti “ in 2002 and the conference on Clementi organized by the Austrian and the German Historical Institutes in Rome. ... " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Apr 27, 2008 | Hits: 316

"He was born in São Paulo and started his music studies trough the piano in 1983. In 1994 he went to the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) where he earned his Bachelor degree in conducting and studied harpsichord with Edmundo Hora.

He participated in many Festivals in Brazil, studying Composition, Conducting, Piano, Baroque Violin, Organ and Harpsichord, as well as in the XIX Cursos Internacionais de Música da Casa de Mateus (Portugal). He has attended Master Classes with Olivier Baumont, Nicolau de Figueiredo, Rudi van Straten and Cristophe Rousset and courses on baroque music with Homero de Magalhães Filho and Manfred Kraemer. In 1999, he was awarded at the IX Rotary Competition of Instrumental Music for Youngsters in Campinas.

In Brazil, he was member of the Chamber Orchestra of the "Sociedade Musical Campinas" (violinist and assistant conductor), "Seicento" (specialized in 17th century music), "Camerata Novo Horizonte", "Jardim Musical", "La Bagatelle", "Lexis" and "Armonico Tributo" - Campinas Baroque Orchestra (dir. Edmundo Hora) - all early music ensembles. He played also with the ensembles "Vox Brasiliensis" (dir. Ricardo Kanji) and "Orquesta Barroca del Mercosul" (Uruguay - dir. Cristina Banegas), and as soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of the State University of São Paulo. He took part in the Orchestra of the "Académie Baroque Européenne" in 2002 (dir. Rinaldo Alessandrini) and 2005 (dir. William Christie).

Currently he works with the ensembles "Companhia de Música" (director) - Brazil, "LOTUS", "Giardino Musicale" and "COLLEGIUM MUSICUM Den Haag" (director) - Europe, and as guest teacher at the Royal Conservatoire - The Hague. Claudio also works as accompanist at the Early Music International Festival of Juiz de Fora. "

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Added on: Apr 27, 2008 | Hits: 459

"Skip Sempé, virtuoso harpsichordist and founder of Capriccio Stravagante, is at the forefront of today's musical personalities in Renaissance and Baroque music. Sempé grew up in New Orleans, studied music, musicology, organology and the history of art in the United States at the Oberlin Conservatory and completed his training in Europe with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam. His distinctive harpsichord playing, musicianship and interpretive flair were immediately recognized as the invention of an exotic, multi-dimensional and uncompromising musical personality. Sempé remained in Europe to embark on his own pioneering reconsideration of well and lesser-known repertoire ranging from 1500 – 1750. "

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Added on: Apr 27, 2008 | Hits: 379

"

• 1973-1976 The New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, Massachusetts Bachelor of Music Degree, Piano

• 1977-1979 The New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, Massachusetts Masters of Music Degree, Harpsichord

• 1976-1977 Studied conducting with Dr. Antonia Brico, Denver, Colorado

• 1982-1983 Studied harpsichord with Ton Koopman, Amsterdam, The Netherlands "
  

Added on: May 04, 2008 | Hits: 393

"Named “Performer of the Year” in 2004 by the Conseil québécois de la musique, harpsichordist and organist Luc Beauséjour has long been thrilling audiences with his expressive and brilliant performances. He has played in many countries and has regularly teamed up with eminent musicians such as sopranos Agnès Mellon, Donna Brown and Karina Gauvin, contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux, conductor and harpsichordist Hervé Niquet, violinist James Ehnes and trumpet player Paul Merkelo. For Analekta, Naxos and other labels, he has recorded some twenty CDs. Heard regularly on public radio, Luc Beauséjour was awarded this year’s Listeners’ Award of the Chaîne culturelle de Radio-Canada. In July 2004, Luc Beauséjour recorded Book I of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier (Naxos). " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: May 04, 2008 | Hits: 382

"James M. Guthrie (D.M.A., Louisiana State University, composer, performer, and music educator), currently serves as Assistant Professor of Music, and as Artistic Director of the Meherrin Chamber Orchestra at Chowan University. Dr. Guthrie serves as the area coordinator for the Music Industry Track. In addition to course work in the music industry, his teaching duties include Applied Strings, Organ, Theory, Aural Skills, and Composition. Guthrie coordinates the annual Music Industry Day event, as well as two New Music Day concerts at Chowan.

Dr. Guthrie has been active in the research and performance practices of music from early periods in music history. He founded the Chowan University Collegium Musicum in 2007, and performs on a variety of period instruments, including the harpsichord, virginal, viola da gamba, and recorder. He has performed with the LSU Collegium Musicum, the Delta Viol Consort, the ULL Collegium Musicum, the Chowan University Collegium Musicum, the Meherrin Chamber Orchestra, the Chowan Chorus, the Cantata Chorus, the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra and the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: May 10, 2008 | Hits: 461

"Biagio Terracciano, pianist, choir and orchestra Director, has a diploma with distinction in piano at the Academy of Music "S.Pietro a Majella" in Naples and a honours degree with a historical musicologic specialization in Italian Literature. Since 1984 he has been studying and doing research on ancient music, specializing in the practice of the renaissance and baroque polyphony both sacred and secular. In the same year he founded the vocal group "Dimensione Polifonica" which he has been instructing and directing since then. Having distinguished himself during international courses of specialization both for orchestration and choir conduction organized by the Directors D.Bartolucci (Director for life of the Cappella Sistina), R.R. Duarte, J. Jurgens, B. Zagni he has also participated to the International Courses of Urbino for the vocality and the execution of the baroque music. He has published many articles and essays on ancient music and on sacred polyphony. In 1997 he revised L. Leo's unpublished "Dixit Domus" donating the score of it to Maestro R. De Simone of the Academy of Music of Naples. In 1988 he founded the Cultural Association "Dimensione Polifonica", an organization of regional importance, of which he is the President. As an expert of liturgical music he cooperates with the Cathedral of Naples. In 1990 he played the organ during the John Paul IInd celebration of the High Mass in Piazza del Plebiscito. Since 1991 he has been the Director of the Schola Cantorum of the Cathedral of Naples, which performs during the most important liturgies, celebrated by the Cardinal Michele Giordano. He is the founder and instructing director of the choir of white voices "S. Maria della Rotonda". He is the Secretary of the Diocesan Commission of sacred music, conductor of many chamber groups and artistic director of many musical happenings. ... " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: May 20, 2008 | Hits: 299

"Michael Borgstede lives in Tel Aviv and works as both Middle East correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung as well as a harpsichordist and organist. As a soloist and member of the ensemble Musica ad Rhenum he has toured almost all European countries, the United States, Asia, South America and the Middle East. Michael Borgstede regularly performs at venues like the Wigmore Hall in London, the Konzerthaus in Vienna and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.While still a student at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague he won the BenWeber Award and the York Early Music Competition. He has participated in morethan twenty CD-productions, among which are the Complete Chamber Music of Francois Couperin with the ensemble Musica ad Rhenum. Summer 2006 saw the release of the Complete hrpsichord music of Couperin on the Brilliant Classics label (11 CDs), which was praised by the press and received several distinctions. Apart from his extensiveconcert activities Michael Borgstede is invited regularly to hold masterclasses und give lectures on controversial aspects of Historical Performance Practice. He always strives for an interpretation full of contrast and dramawhich does justice to the rhetoric and affect of baroque music. This search haslead him to “crack some dogmas of Historically Informed Performance Practice”(Tagesanzeiger). The results are “sometimes unusual, but always inventive, lively and musicologically sound interpretations” (El Pais). He has also published a book on the ethnic diversity of Israeli society. " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Jun 22, 2008 | Hits: 516

"David graduated with distinction from the Royal College of Music in 2003 where for two consecutive years he won the Richard the Third and Century Fund Prizes. In the same year he also won first prize in the prestigious Broadwood Harpsichord Competition - an international event held biannually at London’s Fenton House, home of the historic Benton Fletcher collection of early keyboard instruments, where he subsequently became artist in residence.

Born in Bethnal Green in the East End of London, David Wright received no musical training as a child and taught himself to play ‘by ear’. It wasn’t until he was sixteen that he had his first piano lesson and learned to read music, later going on to study harpsichord, organ, and viola da gamba as an undergraduate at Trinity College of Music, where he won the Ella Kidney prize for early music.

David works regularly with some of the world’s leading ensembles and musicians. He has directed concerts from the harpsichord including the first modern performance of Thomas Arne’s ballad opera ‘The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green’. David is engaged regularly amongst the artists at Dartington International Summer School and as repetitieur with the English Touring Opera and The English Bach Festival, with whom he has been assistant musical director for several operas. David’s radio and television broadcasts include performances as a finalist in the York Early Music Competition and soloist at the Handel House Museum London (both for BBC Radio3) and more recently a recital as part of the Belfast Music Festival, broadcast on BBC Northern Ireland. As a continuo player and soloist David performs regularly with the London Concertante, who tour extensively worldwide.

David has a keen interest in instrument building and restoration, and has recently completed a copy of a 17th century English harpsichord which he uses regularly for concerts. " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Jun 24, 2008 | Hits: 416

"Gabriele Catalucci was born in Amelia in 1958 where he studied piano with Pina Ardizzone.

Some years later he graduated in Organ and Composition under Wijnand van de Pol and in Harpsichord after studying with Annaberta Conti e Maria Teresa Garatti at the Conservatorio "F.Morlacchi" of Perugia.

He studied conducting as well and took part at courses for organ with Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini at the Accademia per organo of Pistoia and for harpsichord with Kenneth Gilbert at the “Fondazione Cini" of Venezia.

He attended the Scuola di Paleografia e Filologia Musicale in Cremona (Pavia University). At the end of his studies he started giving concerts as organ, harpsichord and fortepiano soloist and as conductor in festivals and many theatres in Italy and abroad (Argentina, Austria, France, Germany, Norway, Spain, Switzerland).

He recorded several works for Bongiovanni, Eco, Frequenz and for RAI Radio3 and revised and published operas and instrumental and sacred-vocal music of XVII - XIX centuries.

He teaches Harmony and analysis and Historical Keyboards at the "G.Briccialdi" Music School in Terni and is conductor of the Corale Amerina, plays in duo with Wijnand van de Pol (two organs-two harpsichords) and Andrea Di Mario (natural trumpet) with whom founded the ensemble of natural trumpets, baroque ketteldrums and organ Les Trompettes des Plaisirs and is deputy organist at All Saints' Anglican Church in Rome. ... " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Jul 02, 2008 | Hits: 385

"Marco Vitale was born in Palermo (Italy) in 1980. He studied piano, organ, harpsichord and composition at Palermo’s “V. Bellini” Conservatory. He took the piano diploma in 2001 and the organ diploma in 2002 with full marks and “Cum Laude”. He took part in many international master-classes where he developed his skills and taste for baroque music.

His concert life began at age of 15, with performances as a soloist and chamber musician. He has performed as a continuo player with well-known orchestras and conductors. In 2002 he moved to The Netherlands where he studied at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. Marco Vitale took degrees in organ with Jos van der Kooy, and Early Music (harpsichord) with Ton Koopman and Tini Mathot.

Marco Vitale is the co-founder and musical director of “Contrasto Armonico”, a baroque orchestra specialized in the performance of music in italian stytle and baroque operas; in 2008 started a cooperation with the Dutch label Brilliant Classics, for whom he recorded already the serenata “Aci, Galatea e Polifemo” by Handel. For he will record, in October 2008, the Handel’s oratorio “La Resurrezione”, which will be released in the first half of the Handel year 2009. In addition to performing, he also works as teacher, giving master-classes throughout Europe and teaching Harpsichord at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague (Netherlands). " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Jul 02, 2008 | Hits: 319

"Andrea Chezzi, born in Colorno (PR) in 1975, graduated in organ and composition from the Conservatory A. Boito in Parma, and then studied harpsichord in Amsterdam under the guidance of Bob van Asperen. He followed courses in performance practice of early music with L. F. Tagliavini, W. van de Pol, Ch. Stembridge, G. Murray, A. Marcon, Ch. Rousset at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. ... " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Jul 06, 2008 | Hits: 371

"Susanne Pumhösl lives in Vienna, where she works as a freelance musician and teaches at Konservatorium Wien University. She began her career as a soloist in 1996, after taking first place at the International Johann Heinrich Schmelzer Competition at Melk Monastery with the virtuoso baroque aria “Vo far Guerra” from G.F. Handel’s opera “Rinaldo”.
br> Her solo and chamber music activities—with the ensembles Capella Leopoldina and Private musicke—have been documented in numerous CD and radio recordings and have received several awards. ... " Visit website for more information. (ed.)

Added on: Jul 14, 2008 | Hits: 516