Old & New: Five Centuries of English Clavichord Music With Marcia Hadjimarkos – April 20, 2024

Saturday, April 20, 2024 – 2pm
Ascension Episcopal Parish – 1823 SW Spring St. Portland – Map

Online Video Premiere – Saturday, May 4, 2024 – 2pm on the WEKA YouTube Channel

Marcia Hadjimarkos, an Oregon native now in France, will be known to some of you from her time in the NW. She will share a wide range of English keyboard music at the clavichord, from a 1630 virginal book to the 20th century, including a sonata by Joseph Haydn. Marcia’s performances can be heard in these recordings and videos.

The lovely Ascension Episcopal Parish chapel has limited seating, in order to hear the instrument at its best. Please RSVP to weka@wekaweb.org to reserve your seat!

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Admission – Those with reservations will be seated first
Free to WEKA members
Free to 18 and under, and college students with ID
Children must be accompanied by an adult
General Admission $25 payable at the door by cash/check only

About Marcia Hadjimarkos – YouTube Channel

Marcia Hadjimarkos, performs, records, and teaches on a variety of keyboard instruments from the earliest Florentine piano to its modern counterpart, with particular interest in clavichords and historic pianos both grand and square. She is a Portland native, and began piano studies with Nellie Tholen. After earning degrees in piano performance and French from the University of Iowa, she studied fortepiano with Jos Van Immerseel at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique.

Career highlights include song recitals with Emma Kirkby, Beth Taylor, and Julianne Baird, the commemoration of Hélène de Montgeroult’s 250th anniversary at the Paris Conservatoire, a concert series on a facsimile of the Cristofori piano, a clavichord concert at the Institute for Advanced Study, an 8-recital performance of the complete Haydn sonatas on several early keyboards, and the premiere of a clavichord suite written for her by American composer John Harbison. Marcia also enjoys working with actors and singers to co-create programs that combine words and music, such as ‘The Intimate Mozart’ (based on the Mozart family letters) and ‘Entre Deux Feux’ (commemorating popular and art songs of the World War I era). She gives frequent master classes on historic pianos and clavichords in conservatories, museums, universities, and festivals.

Her performances are described as “imaginatively realized, full-blooded, and loving”, “brilliantly intelligent”, and “dynamic, free, and powerfully shaped”. She has played at the International Piano Festival in La Roque d’Anthéron, La Folle Journée de Nantes, the Sablé Festival, l’Arsenal de Metz, the Journées Musicales d’Automne, the National Music Museum, Rencontres Internationales Harmoniques, the Nordic Historical Keyboard Festival, the Cobbe, Finchcocks, Bad Krozingen, Fenton House and Russell Collections, the San Diego Early Music Society, MusicSources…Her recordings of Mozart Sonatas and Rondos, Haydn Sonatas, Character Pieces by C.P.E. Bach, Haydn songs & cantatas with Emma Kirkby, Viennese music with Hugo Reyne (czakan), and Schubert Dances and Sonata have been enthusiastically received, and have earned various awards including a Diapason d’Or. A recording of solo piano and the complete chamber works by Hélène de Montgeroult, played on an 1817 square piano, with mezzo-soprano Beth Taylor and violinist Nicolas Mazzoleni, was released in October 2023 on the Seulétoile label. The album Murmurations, released on the Outer Markerlabel and available on the NativeDSD site, was recorded on an 1889 New York Steinway B. It reflects Marcia’s return to more modern keyboard instruments and their repertoire,and includes works by Satie, Pärt, Cage, Monk, Glass, Mompou, Tailleferre, and Skempton.