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The American harpsichordist and organist, Charlotte Mattax Moersch, began piano studies with her mother at the age of 4. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in Music cum laude from from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut; her Master of Music degree in Harpsichord from the Juilliard School of Music in New York; and her DMA degree in Early Music from Stanford University in Stanford, California. She became enthralled with the harpsichord while an undergraduate at Yale University. She studied harpsichord with
Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam, where she also worked with
Ton Koopman in master-classes; with Bob van Asperen in The Hague; with
Kenneth Gilbert in Paris; and with Albert Fuller in New York. She studied organ with William Barnard (Christ Church Cathedral, Houston) and with
André Isoir (l’Église Saint Germain des Prés, Paris). She captured First and Third Prizes in the International Harpsichord Competitions in Paris, France and Bruges, Belgium. The recipient of several important awards and prizes, she was honored with a Solo Recitalist Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Harriet Hale Woolley Scholarship for study in Paris.
Charlotte Mattax Moersch has performed worldwide as a soloist and chamber musician. Called a “nonpareil harpsichordist” by Early Music America, she has received critical acclaim for her playing, at once “dashing yet intelligent” (Classical Times, London), and “fluent and expressive” (Fanfare Magazine). She has appeared in solo recitals in New York, London, Edinburgh, Rome, Geneva, Paris, and Amsterdam, and at historic venues, among them Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, the Mozarteum, and the Palazzo della Cancelleria. As a guest artist, she has performed at the Festival of the Associazione Musicale Romana, Festival estival, Tage alter musik Regensburg, and the
Bethlehem Bach Festival and
Boulder Bach Festival, and has played with San Francisco’s American Baroque and the
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, with whom she toured Europe.
As harpsichordist with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Charlotte Mattax Moersch collaborated with jazz vocalist Bobby McFerrin in a concert at the PNC Bank Arts Center, a 17,000-seat amphitheater, and played harpsichord in Grande Bande’s production of Rameau’s opera Platée at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, featuring renowned soprano
Renée Fleming. She has partnered with dancers as well, performing a program of French music with Baroque dancer Catherine Turocy of the New York Baroque Dance Company, and
J.S. Bach's harpsichord concerti with Paul Taylor’s “Taylor 2 Dance Company.”
Charlotte Mattax Moersch is a specialist in seventeenth-century French music; her book, Accompaniment on Theorbo and Harpsichord: Denis Delair’s Traité of 1690, is published by Indiana University Press. Her solo harpsichord discography includes
J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations (BWV 988),
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach's sonatas, and the complete Pièces de clavecin of Jean Henry D’Anglebert, Armand-Louis Couperin, Charles Noblet, and Pierre Février. “The Bach Legacy,” her most recent recording, features sonatas and polonaises of
J.S. Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.,
Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, and
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach.
Currently Professor of Harpsichord and Musicology at the University of Illinois (since August 1998), Charlotte Mattax Moersch directs the period instrument ensemble, Concerto Urbano, which she founded in 1998. At Illinois’ Krannert Center, she has directed fully staged period performances of Baroque operas, including Rameau’s Zéphyre, Purcell’s Fairy Queen, Monteverdi’s Poppea, Lully’s Armide,
George Frideric Handel's Acis and Galatea, and Cavalli’s La Calisto. She currently lives in
Champaign, Illinois. |
