Saturday, March 2, 2024 – 2pm
Reed College, Portland – Performing Arts Building Room 320 – Directions
Read a Review of this Event by Carol lei Breckenridge
Online Video Premiere – Saturday, March 16, 2024 – 2pm on the WEKA YouTube Channel
Douglas Amrine visits from Europe to perform music of the 17th century including virginalist composers of England and the Low Countries, followed by suites by Louis Couperin and Henry Purcell. After the recital, Douglas talks about his work to establish and maintain the Gustav Leonhardt Pedagogy Archive, a digital collection of primary-source material about Gustav Leonhardt’s teaching. The great influence of Gustav Leonhardt on the field of early music and keyboard playing is widely acknowledged. This is a special opportunity to learn about and discuss Leonhardt’s teaching with one who has knowledge of it.
Printable Program
Admission
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 with cash or check
The Reed College Performing Arts Building is easily accessible from the free, West Parking Lot on SE 28th Ave. Directions
The Gustav Leonhardt Pedagogy Archive:
A talk by its founder, Douglas Amrine
Gustav Leonhardt (1928-2012) began to explore the historical harpsichord and its repertory in the 1940s, when “early music” interested only a few isolated performers and musicologists. His search for the sounds of a forgotten musical world convinced only a few at first, then touched a widening public, and finally led him to international celebrity.
Over the course of 40 years, he welcomed some 150 harpsichord students (including dozens of Americans) into his Conservatory class in Amsterdam and gave numerous masterclasses and summer courses. Many of his students became important performers and teachers, who have shaped the historically informed performance (HIP) movement that flourishes worldwide. The Gustav Leonhardt Pedagogy Archive is a digital collection of primary-source material about Gustav Leonhardt’s teaching. Two dozen of his students, from the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, Korea and elsewhere, have provided detailed information about how they came to study with Leonhardt, what their lessons were like, and the lasting impact of Leonhardt’s teaching on their own work and teaching.
In this 45-minute talk, Douglas Amrine discusses why Leonhardt was such an important teacher, the key ideas he conveyed in his lessons, the impact of his teaching on the resurgence of interest in early music, his pedagogic approach, and how a team of three editors created the Archive.
“The core of musical pedagogy is, from my point of view, that musicians have to learn to formulate an answer when asked the question, ‘why?’” – Gustav Leonhardt in 2011
About Douglas Amrine – YouTube Channel
Harpsichordist and organist Douglas Amrine was born in Washington, D.C. in 1958. He attended Stanford University and Oberlin College, and did his post-graduate studies at the Sweelinck Conservatorium Amsterdam, where he studied both instruments with Gustav Leonhardt.
Douglas Amrine has given harpsichord and organ recitals in many European countries, as well as the United States, Singapore, India and Brazil. In 1982 he was a prizewinner at the Albert Schweitzer International Organ Competition. He has recorded two solo CDs of the harpsichord and organ music of J.S. Bach, as well as solo performances for Dutch and German radio. Amrine taught harpsichord at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory in Singapore in 2011-2014.
To develop his understanding of early keyboard instrument performance, Douglas Amrine has travelled widely to play on historic instruments in private and public collections. Gustav Leonhardt invited him to give recitals on the Hagebeer-Duyschot organ of the Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam in 1982 and 1996. Amrine has also been invited by the Smithsonian Institution to perform on the 18th-century harpsichords by Dulcken and Stehlin.
Douglas Amrine has acquired copies of historic harpsichords by renowned makers such as Martin Skowroneck, Malcolm Rose, and Willem Kroesbergen. These fine instruments allow him to immerse himself in the soundworld of early keyboard instruments while at home in Amsterdam.
Press quotes
BBC Radio 3 ‘Record Review’, on Pro Cembalo Pleno: “Those who like their Bach bold and flamboyant will want this curio for their collection.”
L’Echo (Dreux, France): “[Amrine’s] virtuosic playing, always sensitive but powerful when necessary, is imbued with a deep delicacy, particularly perceptible in his way of realizing period ornamentation.”
The Straits Times (Singapore): “[Amrine] maintained a tight sense of continuity through a whole heap of varied escapades, and ended with some staggeringly florid passagework which was tossed off with deceptive ease . . . Harpsichords are not, by their nature, prone to dazzling displays of colour, but here we had a rich tapestry of sounds delivered with a robust musicianship.”
About The Reed College Early Keyboard Collection
Reed College is unique in the Portland area with an Early Keyboard Collection that can be shared, thanks to the efforts of Bonnie Garrett (fortepianist and harpsichordist), whose long career at Reed included both teaching and administration. Read about Bonnie Garrett on page 16 of the Reed College Magazine, Sep 2010