Featured Performers - Harpsichord Heaven 2022
Karen Flint • Friday, April 28 at 7:30 pm
Karen Flint is the founding artistic director of Brandywine Baroque with concerts held in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Ms. Flint established the Dumont Concerts in 2003, a weekend festival of harpsichord recitals. Now called Harpsichord Heaven, the programs are given on her collection of antique instruments in Delaware. She studied harpsichord with Edward Parmentier and Egbert Ennulat and organ with Fenner Douglass and Paul Terry and has degrees from Oberlin Conservatory of Music and The University of Michigan. Ms. Flint is Adjunct Instructor of Harpsichord at the University of Delaware.
Matthew Dirst • Friday, April 28 at 8:30 pm
Matthew Dirst is the first American musician to win major international prizes in both organ and harpsichord, including the American Guild of Organists National Young Artist Competition and the Warsaw International Harpsichord Competition. Widely admired for his stylish playing and conducting, he was recently described in the Washington Post as an “efficient, extremely precise conductor who has an ear for detail and up-to-date ideas about performing Bach.” Early Music America hailed his solo recording of harpsichord works by François and Armand-Louis Couperin, as a “stylish, tasteful, and technically commanding performance…expressive and brilliant playing.” As Artistic Director of Ars Lyrica Houston, Dirst leads a period-instrument ensemble with several acclaimed recordings, including a recording of J. A. Hasse’s Marc Antonio e Cleopatra that was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Opera 2011. His degrees include a PhD in musicology from Stanford University 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, Dirst is Professor of Musicology at the Moores School of Music, University of Houston. His publications include Engaging Bach: The Keyboard Legacy from Marpurg to Mendelssohn (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Bach and the Organ (University of Illinois Press, 2016), and Bach’s Musical Offering and Art of Fugue (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2023).
Zhengyi Hou • Saturday, April 29 at 2:30 pm
Born and raised in Shanghai, China, harpsichordist, pianist and early keyboard instrument technician Zhengyi (Adam) Hou came to US in 2017 after graduating from Shanghai Normal University with a BA in music education and musicology. Originally a pianist, Mr. Hou developed an interest in harpsichords and other early keyboard instruments during his undergraduate days.
On piano, Mr. Hou studied with renowned Chopin interpreter Edward Auer from 2015-2018 and Cleveland Competition winner Roberto Plano from 2018-2021. On harpsichord, he studied with harpsichordist and fortepianist Elisabeth Wright from 2018-2021. Mr. Hou is a current doctorate student in harpsichord at Stony Brook University. He holds an M.M. in piano and a Performer Diploma in harpsichord from IU Jacobs School of Music.
Janine Johnson • Saturday, April 29 at 2:30 pm
Janine Johnson performs on harpsichord and early piano, is a harpsichord builder and decorator, composer, and landscape artist. As a person with with such diverse interests, it has been a lifelong challenge to find outlets for her passions.
Ms. Johnson began her musical studies on the modern piano, and as a teenager, began playing the harpsichord as well. As a piano performance major (and two dimensional art) at California State University, Northridge, she focused on piano and harpsichord, performing on both. She began building harpsichords in earnest at this time (having made her first, at age 17), and has continued as an instrument maker ever since. For the past 26 years she has been working with renowned harpsichord builder and restorer John Phillips of Berkeley http://www.jph.us/ both as a maker and decorator.
Her performing career is primarily based in the San Francisco Bay Area where she gives numerous solo and chamber music recitals, often including original works. She composes solo and chamber music for the fortepiano and harpsichord, and was second place winner this year in the International Alienor Competition for harpsichord composition.
JungHae Kim • Saturday, April 29 at 4:00 pm
JungHae Kim’s unique style blends a sparkling virtuoso technique with a gentle and lyrical sensibility that makes the harpsichord instantly accessible to the modern ear. New York Artsdescribed her playing as “impressive” and characterized by “a supple flow and expressiveness.” La Folia raved, “I have never listened as closely or enjoyed d’Anglebert as much. Kim’s playing is gallant and regal.”
Kim earned diplomas in harpsichord performance at the Peabody Institute, Oberlin Conservatory, and Sweelinck Conservatorium before completing her studies with Dutch master Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam.
A versatile musician on historical keyboard instruments, Kim has appeared as a soloist with period-instrument ensembles as well as the San Francisco Symphony and New Century Chamber Orchestra. She has been featured on NPR and national Korean television (KBS). A sought-after pedagogue, Kim has taught and performed at festivals around the world, including the Bloomington Early Music Festival, Berkeley Early Music Festival, Madison Bach Musicians Workshop, Hawaii Performing Arts Festival, Assisi Music Festival (Italy), Midsommer Baroque Music Festival (Denmark), and Chuncheon International Early Music Festival (Korea).
As co-director of MusicSources (Center for Historically Informed Performance), Kim advocates for historical keyboard performance and has been active in bringing early music to the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2016, she directed and appeared in a performance featuring Belgian virtuoso Sigiswald Kuijken. In 2023 she will be performing with the world renowned baroque flutist Bart Kuijken at MusicSources and at Stanford University.
Kim is founder and artistic director of Ensemble Mirable, which has performed throughout the United States and was recognized by Early Music America for the ensemble’s world-premiere recording of the complete cello sonatas of Jean Zewalt Triemer.
Besides her recordings with Ensemble Mirable, Kim’s discography includes albums featuring English virginal music (The Virginalists); the keyboard music of Jean-Henri d’Anglebert; suites and fantasias of J.S. Bach; and four of Bach’s harpsichord concertos.
Arthur Haas • Saturday, April 29 at 7:30 pm
Arthur Haas, widely known as a performer and teacher of Baroque music, studied harpsichord with Albert Fuller at Juilliard and Alan Curtis in Berkeley and Amsterdam, as well as receiving a master’s degree in Historical Musicology from the University of California, Los Angeles. Mr. Haas is Professor of Harpsichord, Early Music Performance and Continuo at Stony Brook University and teaches harpsichord at the Yale School of Music.
After receiving the top prize in the Paris International Harpsichord Competition in 1975, he continued to live in France until 1983, performing and teaching in many of the major European early music festivals.
Mr. Haas has toured with Marion Verbruggen, Jaap ter Linden, Julianne Baird, Wieland Kuijken and Bruce Haynes. He is a member of the Aulos Ensemble as well as Empire Viols and the newly formed Gold & Glitter, touring the USA and Canada. Annual summer workshop and festival appearances include the International Baroque Institute at Longy, the Virginia Baroque Performance Workshop and the Amherst Early Music Festival, where he served as artistic director of the Baroque Academy from 2002-2012.