Harpsichordist to Perform at the Clark
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| Victor Clark Photo, Howie Levitz |
Featured on the program are Johann Sebastian Bach’s six “French Suites,” the first five of which he composed for his wife Anna Magdalena in approximately 1720. Each suite consists of a sequence of six to eight stylized dance movements that Hill says “emphasizes Bach’s immense creativity.” German composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was a master of the Baroque period renowned for the artistic beauty, technical skill, and intellectual depth of his ecclesiastical and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments.
Hill was a professor of mathematics at Williams College for 40 years. He studied the harpsichord in Amsterdam with the noted Dutch harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt and has played more than 900 concerts throughout the United States and in Europe. Hill plays the double-manual harpsichord of eighteenth-century design that was custom built for him in 1997 by Richard Kingston of Asheville, North Carolina. He tunes the instrument himself in a common 18th-century pitch and temperament.
The Clark is located at 225 South St. The galleries are open Tuesday through Sunday, from 10 to 5 (daily in July and August). Admission is free November through May. Admission is $15 from June 1 through Oct. 31. Admission is free for children 18 and younger, members, and students with valid ID. For more information, call 413-458-2303 or visit clarkart.edu.
