The Instruments

With special thanks to David Cates, for coordinating the loan and care of the following harpsichords made by -

Bruce Kennedy, after Blanchet (double manual)
Owen Daly, after Vaudry (double manual) and Neapolitan-style Italian (single manual)
Philippe Humeau, Italian (double manual, a=346Hz)
Derek Adlam Muselar, after Iohannes Ruckers 1611
Joel Katzmann, after Ioannes Ruckers 1637 (single manual)


The People

Diego Ares was born in 1983 and studied piano with Aleksandras Jurgelionis and Aldona Dvarionaité, and harpsichord with Pilar Cancio and Richard Egarr. Harpsichord maker Joel Katzman, harpsichordists Rafael Puyana and Genoveva Gálvez, and study of historical recordings have guided his work and his research. Ares appears in concert throughout Europe; he also performs in Japan. He began making recordings in 2006, and his three solo recordings (for Harmonia Mundi and Pan Classics) were highly acclaimed by the press (three times Diapason d’Or, Choc de Classica, Maestro de Pianiste, Excepcional from Scherzo, and the Preis der Deustchen Schallplatten Kritik). As pedagogue, he taught harpsichord, fortepiano and basso continuo at the Musikhochschule in Trossingen (Germany).

Conductor, keyboard player and researcher specializing in repertoires from the Middle Ages, David Catalunya cultivates a double profile as a performer and a musicologist. He began his education at the Conservatory of Toulouse and completed his studies at the Conservatoire national supérieur de Lyon, the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC) and the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Leading his own group, Canto Coronato, and as a member of other notable ensembles, he focuses on repertoires from the 13th to 15th centuries, and his discography includes Faventina (the sacred repertoire of the Codex Faenza, with Mala Punica), Meyster ob allen Meystern (15th-c. keyboard music, with Tasto Solo) and Le chant de l’eschiquier (Dufay and Binchois songs in the Buxheim manuscript, with Tasto Solo), which together have been awarded more than 30 international prizes and distinctions. David Catalunya is a faculty member of the Organ Academy of Cuenca (Spain) since 2011, and - parallel to his artistic activity - holds a research position at the University of Würzburg, where he works as a co-editor of the series Corpus Monodicum. He is a member of the research board at the Universidad Complutense of Madrid and an Associated Director of DIAMM (Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music, Oxford Faculty of Music). His publications include the discovery of new sources of medieval polyphony. Currently he is preparing the release of his book Music, Space and Ritual in Medieval Castile, 1250-1350. {Please see the Faenza 117 page for a longer version of this biography, along with his program notes.}

Sara Gross Ceballos is an assistant professor of musicology at Lawrence University. She earned a B. A. in music from Colby College and a Ph.D. in musicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, where her primary research focused on how keyboard works functioned as portraits—of subjects of character pieces, of patron-performers, or of composers—through the aural, kinesthetic and visual dimensions of performance. She has published on Scarlatti sonatas as royal portraits in Domenico Scarlatti Adventures: Essays to Commemorate the 250th Anniversary of his Death, and performance as a medium for moral criticism in “François Couperin, Moraliste?” published in Eighteenth-Century Music (2014). A forthcoming article titled “Sympathizing with C. P. E. Bach” explores how musical interactions between composer and players, and keyboardist and violin accompanist relate to philosophical theories of sympathy and sympathetic exchanges in literature of the late eighteenth century. She was recently rewarded the Young Teacher Award at Lawrence University (2015).

In the last 25 years Carole Cerasi has established herself at the very front rank of early keyboard players and recording artists in her field. Her many performances have received great critical acclaim and her recordings have garnered an impressive series of awards. Known for her expressive and virtuosic interpretations, fluidity of phrasing and refined touch, she has delighted audiences and critics alike in repertoire extending from Byrd, Froberger, the French clavecinistes, Bach and sons, to Haydn and early Beethoven. Carole has given recitals throughout Europe as well as in Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Colombia, Israel, Canada and the States. Her CDs have won many major awards (Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, 1999 Gramophone Instrumental Award; C.P.E. Bach and Thomas Tomkins, Diapason d'Or de l’Année; J.S. Bach and the Möller Manuscript, Diapason d’Or de l'Année and runner-up Gramophone Baroque Instrumental Awards; Scarlatti, runner-up 2012 Gramophone Awards). Her latest release, recorded on the superb 1784 Hoffman clavichord at Hatchlands Park, is entitled Treasures of the Empfindsamkeit. Carole comes from a Sephardic family based in Istanbul, and spent her childhood in Stockholm, Geneva and Jerusalem; her mother tongue is French. A highly respected teacher, besides her work as Professor of Harpsichord and Fortepiano at the Royal Academy of Music, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Yehudi Menuhin School, Carole is a much sought-after pedagogue by talented students of the younger generation.

Leon Chisholm is a musicologist and organist, currently a Fellow of the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University. His recent research investigates the intersection of music cognition and material culture in early modern Europe. He completed a Ph.D. in musicology from UC Berkeley in 2015. He also holds a M.M. in organ performance from Arizona State University, where he studied organ with Kimberly Marshall and harpsichord with John Metz.

Matthew Dirst is Professor of Music at the Moores School of Music at the University of Houston and Artistic Director of Ars Lyrica Houston. He is the first American to win major international prizes in both organ and harpsichord, including the National Guild of Organists Young Artist Competition (1990) and the Warsaw International Harpsichord Competition (1993). Dirst’s recordings of music by Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti and J. A. Hasse with Ars Lyrica Houston, on the Naxos and Sono Luminus labels, have earned a Grammy nomination for Best Opera (2011) and widespread critical acclaim. His degrees include a PhD in musicology from Stanford University, during which time he also studied harpsichord with Alan Curtis, and the prix de virtuosité in both organ and harpsichord from the Conservatoire National de Reuil-Malmaison, France, where he spent two years as a Fulbright scholar. Equally active as a scholar, he is the author of Engaging Bach: The Keyboard Legacy from Marpurg to Mendelssohn (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and the editor of Bach and the Organ (University of Illinois Press, 2016).

Emily I. Dolan is the Gardner Cowles Associate Professor of Music at Harvard University. Previously, she was an associate professor of music at the University of Pennsylvania, where she taught since 2006. Dolan works on the music of the late 18th and 19th centuries. She focuses on issues of orchestration, timbre, aesthetics, and instrumentality, exploring in the intersections between music, science, and technology. Her first book, The Orchestral Revolution: Haydn and the Technologies of Timbre, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2013. Currently, Dolan is working on a collaborative project on timbre with Alexander Rehding for Oxford Handbooks Online and on her second book, which explores the concept of instrumentality (Instruments and Order).

Arthur Haas is one of the most sought after performers and teachers of Baroque music in the United States today. He studied harpsichord with Albert Fuller at Juilliard and Alan Curtis in Berkeley and Amsterdam as well as receiving a masters degree in Historical Musicology at UCLA. Mr. Haas received the top prize in the Paris International Harpsichord Competition in 1975, and then lived in France until 1983, performing and teaching in many of the major European early music festivals. He participated in the premier recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variation Canons with Alan Curtis, and has also recorded suites for two harpsichords by Gaspard LeRoux with William Christie. Solo CDs of D’Anglebert, Forqueray, Purcell and his contemporaries, Jacquet de La Guerre, F. Couperin, and the complete harpsichord works of Rameau, have all received critical acclaim in the press. Known for his expertise as a continuo player, Mr. Haas has toured with such distinguished early musicians as Marion Verbruggen, Jaap ter Linden, Julianne Baird, Wieland Kuijken, and Bruce Haynes. A member of the Aulos Ensemble as well as the newly formed Gold & Glitter, he has toured frequently all over the US and Canada. Annual summer workshop and festival appearances include the International Baroque Institute at Longy, and the Amherst Early Music Festival, where he served as artistic director of the Baroque Academy from 2002-2012. Mr. Haas teaches harpsichord at Stony Brook University and the Yale School of Music and was a founding faculty member of Juilliard’s Historical Performance program.

Matthew J. Hall is a PhD candidate at Cornell University. His research interests include J.S. Bach, counterpoint, music analysis, and Renaissance studies. He has published articles and reviews in Understanding Bach, Eighteenth-Century Music, and The Journal of the Alamire Foundation. He was recently awarded the Irene Alm Memorial Prize by the Society for Seventeenth-Century Music for research on instrumental chamber music at the court of Louis XIV. He performs regularly on the harpsichord, organ, clavichord, and fortepiano. In 2013 his recording of the C.P.E. Bach piano quartets with Sarah Darling (viola) and Sarah Paysnick (traverso) was released on the Ad Parnassum label.

Katherine Heater received her Bachelor of Arts degree from UC Berkeley where she played in Alan Curtis' Collegium Musicum, studying harpsichord, fortepiano and continuo realization with him. She went on to study historical keyboards at Oberlin Conservatory and the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. Ms. Heater performs early music often with groups such as Musica Pacifica, Voices of Music and Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado. She currently teaches harpsichord privately and at UC Berkeley.

From a very young age, Jean-Luc Ho developed a passion for early keyboard instruments. He started playing the harpsichord when he was eight and later took an interest in the organ and the clavichord. He graduated from the Paris Conservatoire (CNSMDP) in 2006. Greatly influenced by the teaching of Blandine Verlet, he also benefited from the advice of Martin Gester and Jos van Immerseel. His taste for period instruments and the art of instrument making led him to build his own collection of keyboards, so as to further his research and experiment with new ideas. As a harpsichordist, he has given recitals in Paris (at Radio France and at the Eglise des Billettes), Chartres (at the Musée des Beaux-Arts), Brussels and London, and his first harpsichord recording is devoted to J.S. Bach and F. Couperin (recorded in April 2011). Jean-Luc also teaches harpsichord and figured bass at Franconville (Val d’Oise), and enjoys sharing his passion with a wider audience at workshops in Royaumont and at the Musée de la Musique in Paris, and with Arcal (compagnie nationale de théâtre lyrique et musical).

Edmond Johnson is Director of Academic Advising and Coordinator of the Core Program in Liberal Arts at Occidental College in Los Angeles, where he also teaches courses in Music History and Cultural Studies. He received his PhD in musicology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2011. He has contributed several articles on musical instruments to Oxford Music Online and his article “The Death and Second Life of the Harpsichord” (Journal of Musicology) was awarded the 2015 Frances Densmore Prize by the American Musical Instrument Society. In addition to his work on the harpsichord and the early music revival, he is interested in the broader study of musical instruments and their intersecting social, cultural, and technological histories.

Harpsichordist JungHae Kim’s playing has been described as inspired, fluid, emotionally exquisite, warm, and inviting. Her unique style blends sparkling virtuoso technique with a gentle and lyrical sensibility. JungHae holds a Bachelors Degree in Harpsichord Performance from the Peabody Conservatory, and a Masters Degree in Historical performance in Harpsichord from the Oberlin Conservatory. She completed her studies with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam on a Haskell Scholarship, and holds an Advanced Degree in Harpsichord Performance from Amsterdam’s Sweelinck Conservatorium. JungHae has performed in concert throughout the United States, Europe, and in Asia as a soloist and with numerous historical instrument ensembles including American Baroque, Brandywine Baroque, Music’s ReCreation, Musica Glorifica, and Ensemble Mirable. She has also soloed with some of California’s premier modern ensembles including the San Francisco Symphony and the New Century Chamber Orchestra. JungHae has performed on a number of music festival series including the Britt Festival (Oregon), the Assisi Music Festival (Italy), Music In The Vineyards (Napa, CA), the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, the Chuncheon Festival (South Korea), and the Bloomington (Indiana) and Berkeley Early Music Festivals. For more information and to purchase her recordings (including the recent J.S. Bach Suites & Fantasias) please visit www.junghaekim.com.

Richard Leppert is Regents Professor, and Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor, in the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. His research is concentrated on Western European and American cultural history from the 17th century to the present. The most recent of his books are Sound Judgment (Ashgate series “Contemporary Thinkers on Critical Musicology”), and Aesthetic Technologies of Modernity, Subjectivity, and Nature (Opera – Orchestra – Phonograph – Film), just published by the University of California Press.

Deirdre Loughridge is a Lecturer in the Department of Music at the University of California, Berkeley. Since receiving her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 2011, Loughridge has held fellowships from the Mellon Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies. Her research inquires into the material cultures of music in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as the long history of music and technology ("from bone flute to auto-tune," as her undergraduate course and current book project on the topic are called). Loughridge’s publications include articles in the Journal of Musicology, Eighteenth-Century Music and Journal of the Royal Musical Association, and her first book, Haydn’s Sunrise, Beethoven’s Shadow: Audiovisual Culture and the Emergence of Musical Romanticism, is forthcoming from University of Chicago Press (July 2016). On the web, Loughridge is co-author of the Museum of Imaginary Musical Instruments which features both delightful and disturbing keyboard instruments.

Gilbert Martinez is the Artistic Director of MusicSources, Center for Historically Informed Performance, an organization founded by Laurette Goldberg and now celebrating its 30th season. Beginning the harpsichord at an early age, his teachers were Wm. Niel Roberts in Los Angeles, and Laurette Goldberg at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Upon the invitation of Alan Curtis, he lived in Italy to study harpsichord and conducting, and worked as Curtis' assistant conductor for a successful production of Handel's Serse for Berkeley/West Edge Opera, followed by Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea and Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria. As a recitalist and soloist, Gilbert has performed the complete works of Jean-Philippe Rameau, entirely from memory, in the USA, Canada, and in Scandinavia. This past season, he appeared with Early Music Alberta as a soloist with Elizabeth Wallfisch in the complete Brandenburg Concerti, and as a guest soloist with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra under Jeffrey Kahane. Making his new home in Copenhagen, Denmark, he is a regular collaborator with Copenhagen Soloists, and has appeared frequently with Tidlig Musik i Danmark (Early Music Denmark) - where he also serves on the board of directors - The Copenhagen Renaissance Festival, and MidsommerBarok Festival. This summer he teaches in a baroque masterclass in Ljubljana, Slovenia with violinist Enrico Gatti and harpsichordist Egon Mihajlovic.

Edward Parmentier taught harpsichord, directed and taught vocal and instrumental early music ensembles, and taught various other early music academic courses and seminars at the University of Michigan for 38 years, where he was Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Music; he retired last year. He also taught annual summer harpsichord workshops at Michigan during that time. He studied with Gustav Leonhardt and Albert Fuller. He continues to play recitals, teach and lecture, and has made a dozen CD recordings. He has performed around the U.S. and in Russia, Estonia, Japan, Korea, Germany, the Netherlands, Ukraine and France.

Praised for his “…overwhelming elegance...” (Scherzo Magazine), Ignacio Prego is considered one of the leading Spanish harpsichordists of his generation. First Prizewinner at the 2012 Westfield International Harpsichord Competition, he has performed in major cities in Europe, the USA, Canada, South-America and Asia. Recent appearances include Mr. Prego’s debut at the Sevilla Early Music Festival (FeMAS), concerts as a soloist with the Portland Baroque Orchestra led by Monica Huggett at the Oregon Bach Festival, with The English Concert and Harry Bicket in NY, and with Byron Schenkman & Friends in Seattle, among others. Mr. Prego will release J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations with GLOSSA in autumn 2016. His previous recording, the Complete French Suites with CANTUS Records, was listed among the best recordings of March 2015 by Scherzo magazine and was awarded the ‘Melomano de Oro’. Mr. Prego is recipient of the 2005 AECI Grant, the 2009 CajaMadrid Foundation Grant and the 2014 English Concert Fellowship. He studied harpsichord with Elisabeth Wright at Indiana University, and with Kenneth Weiss and Richard Egarr at The Juilliard School in New York.

John H. Roberts is Professor of Music Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, where for twenty years he was also head of the Hargrove Music Library. As a musicologist his work has centered primarily on Handel. His articles have appeared in Music & Letters, the Journal of the American Musicological Society, the Händel-Jahrbuch, Göttinger Händel-Beiträge, and numerous book collections, and he edited the nine-volume facsimile series Handel Sources (Garland, 1986).

Tilman Skowroneck works as a harpsichordist, fortepianist and musicologist. A harpsichord and continuo instructor-on-demand at the Högskolan för scen och musik, Göteborg, West Sweden, he also works as a translator and harpsichord technician. Beginning in 1991, Tilman held a position with the baroque ensemble Corona Artis based in Göteborg, performing a wide variety of continuo and solo literature in all Baroque styles and in the earlier Classical style. He specializes in solo performance on the harpsichord and continuo playing and has a special interest in the early piano, its construction and its repertoire. Since 1997 he conducted research in Beethoven performance practice on the piano. His present research focuses on progressive and conservative influences on the development of Viennese pianos after 1800. Tilman is also editor of the e-newsletter of the Westfield Center, and guest editor of the journal Keyboard Perspectives, vols. VI/2013 and VIII/2015.

Elaine Thornburgh performs on harpsichord throughout the United States as both a soloist and in chamber ensembles. A native of Key West, Florida, she was raised in San Francisco and began her study of the harpsichord with Alan Curtis while a student at the University of California, Berkeley. She has studied harpsichord with Gustav Leonhardt and fortepiano with Malcolm Bilson and Laurette Goldberg. A graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, she was a prize winner at the Sixth Bruges International Harpsichord Competition. In 1984, she received the National Endowment for the Arts Solo Recitalist Award and toured California for many years as an Arts Council Touring Artist. She has recorded for Koch International Classics and Lyrichord.