Mahan Esfahani
Praised by the Washington Post for his "clarity and poise" and by Keyboard Magazine for possessing the "virtuosity of a master," the young Iranian-born harpsichordist and organist Mahan Esfahani enjoys an active career as a soloist and collaborative musician across the United States and Europe with such leading professional ensembles as the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, New York's Spiritus Collective, Ciaramella, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, and the King's Noyse. Winning wide acclaim for his musical sensitivity and technical prowess, Esfahani has appeared at many of leading series and venues, including New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Fondazione Cini of Venice, the Berkeley Early Music Festival, the Goettingen-Haendel-Festpiele, the Halle-Haendel-Festpiele, Tage Alte Musik Regensburg, the Bloomington Early Music Festival, the New York Early Music Celebration, and at numerous universities and American festivals of early music. The recipient of numerous fellowships and honors for his performance and scholarship, he most recently concluded a winter residency as a soloist and chamber musician at Canada's Banff Centre for the Arts.
Mahan Esfahani studied musicology and theory as a President's Scholar at Stanford University, where his area of study was principally in the history of theory and performance practice and wrote his thesis on aesthetics in early 19th-century Italian opera seria. He has recently entered into an agreement with the Musica Omnia label to record the complete works for harpsichord, virginals, and organ by John Bull (1562-1628), the "Liszt of the Virginalists," in collaboration with Australian harpsichordist Peter Watchorn, under whose supervision he has received his most serious training; the first disc of this monumental project is due to be released in the autumn of 2007 (www.musicaomnia.org). He can also be heard as a solo organist on the Naxos label.
Program July 9 - Noon Harpsichord Recital - Castelmuzio
12:00
Mahan Esfahani
The Phenomenon of the Elizabethan and Jacobean English Virginalists
Sad Pavan for these distracted times, Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656)
Barafostus' Dreame
Les Buffons, John Bull (1563-1628)
Pavan & Galliard Sir Wm. Petre, William Byrd (1543-1621)
Walsingham
Farmer's Paven, Giles Farnaby (ca. 1563-1640)
Tell mee, Daphne
Fantasia X
Pavana chromatica, Mrs. Kath[erine] Tregian, William Tisdall
Woody-Cock, Giles Farnaby
Why ask you?, Giles Farnaby
Fantasia XII, John Bull |
