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CAREER

Solo Performances

 

Joan Benson has concertized on the best museum instruments of France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, England, Portugal, Denmark and Sweden. In New York, she has performed at the Frick Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has played and recorded on the clavichords in Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. Other museum settings include the Yale Collection of Musical Instruments, the Smithsonian Institution and Folger Library of Washington, D.C. the Walker Art Gallery and Schubert Club of Minneapolis/St. Paul, and San Francisco's DeYoung Museum and Museum of Modern Art.

Centers of learning have been the setting for Joan Benson's concerts and master classes in more than a hundred locations. These range from the universities of Oxford and Tübingen to the Chinese University in Hong Kong and the American University in Beirut. Other events have been at libraries such as the Paris' Bibliotheque Nationale, conservatories of music like those of Geneva, Munich and Vienna, and at schools in countries such as Nepal and Indonesia.

Benson has appeared in most major universities in the United States, including Brandeis, Princeton, Yale, John Hopkins, MIT, Columbia, Chicago and California, in Berkeley, Santa Barbara and San Diego. College appearances have ranged from Mannes in New York to Pomona in California.

Festival Appearances

Joan Benson has given solo recitals for the International William Kapell Piano Competition and Festival in Maryland, the Pepsico International Festival in New York, the Arts Festival in Findhorn, Scotland, Josef Haydn's 250th Birthday Celebration in Vienna, the International Clavichord Symposium in Magnano, Italy, the Carmel Bach and Cabrillo Festivals in California, and the Aston Magna Summer Festival in Massachusetts, where she was also an artist-faculty member.

Broadcasts

National Public Radio has presented Joan Benson in numerous programs across the country. In addition, she has been featured on CBC's Mostly Music, Luncheon at Kennedy Center, and on television on East and West Coasts and in Asia.

Teaching

Joan Benson's teaching career began at Stanford University, where her energy and intuitive brilliance inspired many students. According to former pupil,, concert artist Carole Terry, " She imparts a knowledge of grace and line that truly helps the student understand the style and nuance of a piece. As a teacher of fortepiano and clavichord, she is unparalleled."

Benson's lively lectures and master classes stimulate interest in the palette of soft sounds possible on clavichords and pianos. She has taught at many colleges, universities and conservatories in America, Europe, and the Middle and Far East.. In addition, Benson has served on the faculties of the University of Oregon and the Aston Magna Academy in Massachusetts.

Recordings

Music by C. P. E. Bach and Kuhnau, clavichord, FOCUS, University of Indiana Press, 1988. Reissued as a CD, 1995.

Haydn and Pasquini on Boston Museum of Fine Arts clavichords, TITANIC RECORDS,1982.

C.P .E.Bach on the Clavichord and Fortepiano, ORION, 1972

Joan Benson-Clavichord, REPERTOIRE RECORDS, 1962; reissued by EDUCO AND BRIDGE RECORDS, 1972. Selected as one of the year's best recordings by Saturday Review.

 

 

Publications

About Joan Benson

Grove's Dictionary of American Music and Musicians, "Joan Benson"

Clavier Magazine, article by Melinda Bargreen

Boston Clavichord Society Magazine, interview by Richard Troeger

Continuo Magazine, interview by Penny Mathiesen

 

By Joan Benson

"Qigong for Pianists", Piano and Keyboard Magazine, September, 1998.

"Clavichord Technique in the Mid-20th Century", De Clavicordio, Proceedings of the International Clavichord Symposium, Magnano, Italy, 1993, Regione Piemonte, Torino, 1994.

Three Poems, Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry, Spring/ Summer 1991.

"Bach and the Clavier," Clavier Magazine, February, 1990.

"Recollections of Edwin Fischer," Journal of the American Liszt Society, January/June 1987.

"Haydn and the Clavichord," International Joseph Haydn Congress, Vienna, 1982, G. Henle Verlag, Munich, Germany, 1986.

" Cecile Mendelssohn's Marriage with Felix," book in process of being published.