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Elaine
Comparone
• back
to the catalog
Since
her acclaimed New York recital debut as a Concert Artists
Guild award winner, harpsichordist Elaine Comparone
has maintained a multi-faceted career as soloist with orchestra
and on the recital stage, chamber musician, recording artist,
impresaria, choral director, teacher, arranger, and collaborator
with choreographers, poets, and video artists. "Elaine
Comparone Plays Red-Blooded Harpsichord" headlined
The New York Times review of her debut and Pulitzer
Prize-winner Donal Henahan called her a "harpsichordist
with few equals"(The New York Times).
Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts into a family of musicians,
she began piano studies at age four with her mother. As
a child she played violin, flute (with her father as teacher),
and pipe organ; but it was not until her student years at
Brandeis University that she discovered and fell in love
with the harpsichord. Her success with that instrument resulted
in a Fulbright Fellowship to study with harpsichordist Isolde
Ahlgrimm at the Academy of Music in Vienna.
A recipient of Solo Recitalist and Recording Grants from
the National Endowment for the Arts, she has given solo
recitals at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall,
Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie, 92nd Street YW-YMHA, Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Dayton Art Institute, and the Library of
Congress, to name a few. She has enjoyed guest appearances
with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New York Virtuosi
Chamber Symphony, New York Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, and
Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra among others. Her collaboration
with the New York Virtuosi included an annual series and
residency at Columbia University's Miller Theatre. In October,
1993, she stepped in at the last minute to replace the harpsichordist
of the all-woman Vivaldi Orchestra of Moscow for its first
American tour and debut at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully
Hall. Since 1974, when she won an unprecedented grant for
the purchase of a van from the Rockefeller Fund for Music,
she has taken her harpsichords to performances in every
state of the continental US as soloist, artist-in-residence
and founder/member of The Queen's Chamber Band,
Trio Bell'Arte, and Bach with Pluck!.
In France, Italy and England she has performed her unique
interpretations of Domenico Scarlatti's music.
As founder/director of Harpsichord Unlimited, a non-profit
organization dedicated to stimulating interest in the harpsichord
and teaching audiences about the instrument, its history,
and its music, she directs and performs in an annual series
of chamber music concerts in New York City. The series features
The Queen's Chamber Band, whose performances
of early music and newly commissioned works in major halls
and historic churches delight Manhattan's music-lovers.
Her avid interest in contemporary music has led to collaborations
with many distinguished composers such as Robert Starer,
Lester Trimble, Joseph Fennimore, Alan Broadbent, Harold
Farberman, David MacDonald, Christopher Lyndon-Gee, Sidney
Boguiren, Susan Kander, William Foster McDaniel, Hanna Levy,
Thomas Pasatieri and many others. In 1998 harpsichordist
Igor Kipnis joined her in premiering new works for two harpsichords
composed by Elodie Lauten and Robert Baksa and commissioned
by Harpsichord Unlimited. Twenty-seven years after composing
his First Harpsichord Sonata, Vincent Persichetti
heard Elaine Comparone play and began to write again for
the harpsichord, dedicating his Second and Third
Harpsichord Sonatas to her. Lester Trimble composed
his Harpsichord Concerto for her with a grant from
the Rockefeller Fund for Music. In 1993 she traveled to
Bratislava to record William Thomas McKinley's Fantasia
con Variazioni with the Slovak Radio Orchestra as part
of an archival American music project. José Raúl
Bernardo's concerto for harpsichord & The Queen's Chamber
Band (Into the Light) along with several of his
chamber works, augments the list of major works she has
inspired. She took her harpsichord to Washington State to
record Stephen Kemp's Harpsichord Concerto with
the Seattle Symphony, conducted by Gerard Schwarz. Under
her direction Harpsichord Unlimited has commissioned, sponsored
and premiered more than 50 new works for harpsichord in
various combinations with instruments and voices.
Among her many recordings are Harpsichord Sonatas by
Persichetti & Scarlatti (Laurel Record); Bach
With Pluck, Volumes I and II (ESS.AY); The Entertainer:
Rags & Marches by Scott Joplin and The Bückeburg
Bach (Premier); Viva l'Italia; (4TAY); Harpsichord
Alive for Capstone; four Baroque opera albums with
Albany; and, seven Albums for Lyrichord's Early Music Series,
including The Cat's Fugue. With Chilean video artist
Juan Downey, she made a ground-breaking, interactive video
disc, Bach's Fugue in B minor for Voyager. her
performances of fugues in Dopwney's award-winning documentary
J. S. Bach has been broadcast on PBS-TV nationwide
and her videos on YouTube have brought accolades from listener/viewers
around the world.
Elaine Comparone enjoys standing at the harpsichord to play.
She cites Vermeer paintings as inspiration along with the
fact that she is a member of the rock'n'roll generations.
Under her direction, Hubbard Harpsichords, Inc. designed
and built a tall,oak stand that elevates the instrument.
Affectionately, dubbed "the Brooklyn Bridge" by
Hubbard technicians, the tall stand accommodates either
her Hubbard or Dowd harpsichord. She recently joined the
faculty of Adelphi University as Professor of Harpsichord.
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