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JOAN BENSON

(born October 9, 1925) is an American clavichordist, fortepianist, pedagogue and writer. As an important pioneer in the Clavichord and Fortepiano revival, she is one of the foremost players and teachers of these instruments in the twentieth century.

LIFE AND CAREER - EARLY YEARS AND STUDIES

Joan Benson, born in St. Paul, Minnesota, is of Swedish descent. Her ancestors were master horticulturists at the Esplunda Estate of the Count Mörners –one of whom proposed marriage to Jenny Lind. In New Orleans, Benson attended Metairie Park Country Day School, an early progressive school that emphasized the arts. In her teens, living in Atlanta, she studied piano with a pupil of Fannie Bloomfield Zeisler and, in 1941, with Percy Grainger. Subsequent education includes: Longy School of Music (1943); Pomona College (B.A. 1946); University of Illinois, piano with Stanley Fletcher (B.M. (1948) and M.M. (1950); Indiana University, piano with Anis Fuleihan (Teaching Assistant, Performer′s Diploma 1952). She appeared in solo concerts and with orchestra in the South and Mid–West. After receiving the Kate Neal Kinley International Fellowship for her ″artistry of fine sensitivity and communicative power,″ Benson left for Europe.

ADVANCED STUDIES IN EUROPE, 1953-1960

In the spring of 1953, Benson began lessons with Yves Nat in Paris, where she attended classes of Oliver Messiaen and Alfred Cortot. In Siena, she received a scholarship to the Accademia Musicale Chigiana. The revered pianist Edwin Fischer became her teacher and mentor from 1953 to 1956. While perfecting her finger technique with Viola Thern in Vienna, Benson turned to the clavichord. She studied with Fritz Neumeyer in Freiburg im Breisgau (1957-59) and with Macario Santiago Kastner in Portugal (1960). On her own, she explored possibilities of delicate shading on the clavichord, encouraged by Alfred Kreutz′s widow.

CAREER (1961-2014)

In 1960, after arriving in San Francisco, Benson joined Putnam Aldrich and the Early Music Program at Stanford University. Within a year, her concerts and radio performances instigated a clavichord revival on the West Coast. Her initial clavichord LP, released by Repertoire Records in 1962, contained the first clavichord recordings of music ranging from a 15th century praeambulum to C.P.E.Bach’s (1787). This LP, selected by Saturday Review as one of the finest classical recordings of the year, sparked Benson’s international career as the first American clavichord artist and pedagogue. For three decades she concertized and taught throughout the United States and Europe and in the Near and Far East. Her large audiences sometimes required the use of subtle amplification. By 1970, she expanded her performances to include the fortepiano, applying her clavichord technique. After studying computer music in the universities of Utrecht and Stanford, she encouraged composers to write for the clavichord as well. In her 80s, at the request of Indiana University, she wrote Clavichord for Beginners, the first detailed modern book on playing the clavichord today.

''″Benson has been praised for unusually sensitive and stylish interpretations in concert and on recordings of a repertory that spans keyboard music from the Renaissance to the Viennese Classics and includes also contemporary works, some of which were written for her. Her work has been crucial in the revival of interest in the fortepiano and the music of C.P.E.Bach.″ Howard Schott, The New Grove′s Dictionary of American Music''

CARL PHILLIP EMANUEL BACH

Joan Benson is particularly known for reviving the clavier compositions of Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach and for her insights into music of the Empfinsamkeit and Sturm und Drang periods. As an advocate of early music authenticity, Benson preferred the spontaneous interaction of a live performance. She is particularly known for her revival of C.P.E.Bach’s keyboard music and her emotional understanding of his free fantasias on both instruments Thus she felt most at home with C.P.E.Bach’s form of the improvisational.

ANTIQUE KEYBOARDS

Benson was a pioneer in the revival of interest in antique clavichords and fortepianos. Beginning in 1966, she gave concerts on the finest instruments of most major collections in Europe and America. At the same time, she worked with clavichord curators and encouraged builders, such as Philip Belt, to copy antique keyboards. Through grants, she studied and compared European museum clavichords, both playable and unplayable. By 1970, Benson began touring extensively (often by airplane) with her 1795 John Broadwood grand fortepiano. Her own collection also included a clavichord by Pehr Lindholm (1780), an anonymous Viennese fortepiano (c.1770) and a Viennese piano by Carl Schneider (c. 1820).

''JOAN BENSON STARS. For those attending this year′s Bach Festival concert by clavichordist Joan Benson, the memory of this unique concert will long remain. If you have never heard the intimate tone of the clavichord, you have missed something, especially when the performance is as masterful as that by Joan Benson. Joan Benson′s performance ranks with the finest of the Baroque keyboard specialists I have heard. One is immediately assured that performances such as these reflect the Baroque tradition at its best.″  Carmel Bach Festival, The Monterey Peninsula Herald, Monterey - July 25, 1963''

TEACHING

Benson has taught on the music faculties of Stanford University (1964-1976), the University of Oregon (1976- 1988) and the Aston Magna Academy in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. She has introduced the clavichord and fortepiano and given master classes to students of many universities, colleges, and conservatories around the world. Her instruction book, Clavichord for Beginners, published in 2014 by Indiana University Press, has already circulated widely in the United States, Europe and Japan.

BUDDHISM

In the 1960s Benson began studies with Zen master Suzuki Roshi. While on concert tours, she visited Thich Nhat Hanh in Plum Village, France. Along with composer Pauline Oliveros, she was asked to form a music program at Zen Mountain Monastery in Mount Tremper, New York. Instead, Benson turned to studying and attending retreats with Tibetan Buddhist masters, such as Thrangu Rinpoche, Bokar Rinpoche and Kalu Rinpoche. Forty years of Buddhist practice have widened, deepened and strengthened her outlook on both music and on life.

RECORDINGS

Joan Benson-Clavichord, REPERTOIRE RECORDS, LP, 1962. Selected as one of the year’s best classical recordings by Saturday Review: reissued by EDUCO and BRIDGE RECORDS.

C.P.E.Bach on the Clavichord and Fortepiano, ORION (Giveon Cornfield), LP 1972.

Haydn and Pasquini, Boston Museum of Fine Arts clavichords, TITANIC (Ralph Dopmeyer), LP 1982.

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

The Artistry of Joan Benson, clavichord, fortepiano and modern piano, CD for ″Clavichord for Beginners″, Indiana University Press (Barry Phillips) 2014.

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 The Clavichord, interview by Peter Brownlee, 2014.

PUBLICATIONS BY JOAN BENSON

BOOKS

Clavichord for Beginners (with a CD of Benson’s recordings and a DVD of her teaching), released by Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 2014.

ADDITIONAL PUBLICATIONS

1. “The Effect of Clavichord Technique on the Fortepiano”, Internationaler Joseph Haydn Kongress Wien 1982, Munich: G.Henle Verlag, 1986.

2. “Recollections of Edwin Fischer”, Journal of the American Liszt Society, January-June 1987.

3. “Bach and the Clavier”, Clavier Magazine, February, 1990.

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

5. “The Clavichord in Twentieth Century America”, Livro de Homenagem a Macario Santiago Kastner, Lisbon: Gulbenkian Foundation, 1992.

6. “Clavichord Technique in the Mid-Twentieth Century”, De Clavicordio, International Clavichord Symposium, Magnano, Italy, 1993. Piemonte: Instituto Per I Bene Musicali, 1994.

7. “Qigong for Pianists,” Piano and Keyboard, September/October 1998.

8. “Clavichord Perspective from Goethe to Pound”, De ClavicordioVI, Musica Antica a Magnano, Italy 2004.

9. “Piano to Clavichord (1925-1962)”, Clavichord International, Nov. 2006.

10. “Studying with Macario Kastner a Half Century Ago”, De Clavicordio Viii, Musica Antica a Magnano, Italy, 2008.

11. “The Interplay of Clavichord and Piano”, De Clavicordio XI, Musica Antiqua a Magnano, Italy, 2014.