BEMIDJI, Minn. (Oct. 6, 2009) — The Department of Music at Bemidji State University will present a multi-harpsichord chamber recital of keyboard concertos by Bach on Saturday, Oct. 17.

The concert will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the main theater of Bemidji State’s Bangsberg Fine Arts Complex. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for senior citizens. Students will be admitted free.

The recital features four of 13 works transposed by Bach during an 11-year period from 1730-1741 when he was the director of Telemann’s Collegium Musicum. Already overworked due to his other engagements in Leipzig, Bach chose to transpose 13 instrumental concertos, typically for violin and oboe, for keyboard and string players at the Collegium rather than compose new work. These transcriptions marked the first time a keyboard instrument became the solo instrument in a concerto. Bach’s work cleared the way for highly successful works of Mozart and Beethoven for piano and orchestra, which led to more works in the same genre by composers such as Mendelssohn, Chopin, Brahms and Tchaikovsky.

The recital will feature Sarah Carlson, Nicholas Good, Heidi Mayer, Helen Skuggedal Reed and Deborah Steinbar on harpsichord. It will also feature a string quartet that includes Dr. Michelle Laliberte and Andrew Martin on violin, Coca Bochonko on viola and Dr. Patrick Riley on cello.

The Harpsichordists
Sarah Carlson holds degrees from the University of Iowa and St. Olaf College and has appeared in Norway and Mexico. Before coming to Bemidji, she was director of music at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church in Darlington, S.C. She also has served as adjunct professor of music at Coker College in Hartsville, S.C., accompanist for the Coker Singers and head of the piano division’s Preparatory School of Music. She is currently director of music ministry at Bemidji’s First Lutheran Church and has performed with the Bemidji Symphony.
Heidi Mayer has degrees in piano performance, choral music education and vocal accompanying from the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University and the Vienna Academy of Music. Her study in Vienna was supported by a Fulbright Scholarship, and in 1996 she was awarded the Music Teachers National Association Enrichment Grant and, in 2005, as named National Piano Technician’s Guild’s Teacher of the Year. She maintains a private studio in Park Ridge, Ill. and is an active accompanist, soloist, lecturer and adjudicator in the Chicago area.

Helen Skuggedal Reed completed her undergraduate work at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and has a master’s degree in performance from the University of Michigan. While at Michigan, she was a member of the Pi Kappa Lambda honorary music fraternity and received grants from the Nova Scotia Talent Trust. Currently, Reed is the principal harpsichordist for the Evansville (Ind.) Philharmonic Orchestra and co-organist of the Eastminster Presbyterian Church. She is on the executive board of the Midwestern Historical Keyboard Society and an active member of the American Guild of Organists.

Nicholas Good is the organist at First United Methodist Church in Topeka, Kan. and is the solo harpsichordist for the Kansas Arts Commission’s Arts on Tour program. He studied harpsichord and piano at the University of Illinois and has recently continued his harpsichord studies at the University of Michigan. He is a member of the Midwwest Historical Keyboard Society and in 2003 was recognized as a colleague of the American Guild of Organists.

Deborah Steinbar is an adjunct professor of music at Bemidji State, where she earned her undergraduate degree in piano performance with a minor in harpsichord. She completed her master’s degree in piano performance at the University of North Dakota and continues her studies in harpsichord at the University of Michigan. Steinbar maintains a private keyboard studio in Bemidji and frequently adjudicates at area piano festivals. She has performed solo harpsichord concerts in Bemidji and has performed with the Bemidji Headwaters Trio.

Support for the recital was provided by the Bemidji Area Arts Endowment, a component of the Northwest Minnesota Foundation.

For additional information, please contact Deborah Steinbar at (218) 335-2428 or dsteinbar@q.com.