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February 22, 2007
Early Music Demonstration and Concert at Academy
Late Renaissance and Baroque music played on original instruments will be on the program at a special Pennsylvania Academy of Music concert and demonstration set for Wednesday, March 28 at 7:00 p.m. in the Event Room of Liberty Place, 313 West Liberty Street, Lancaster. West Chester native Richard Sutcliffe, who now makes his home in Belgium, will be the featured performer at this event, which is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Academy at 717.399.9733.
During the program, Sutcliffe will demonstrate several different types of viola da gambas, bowed stringed instruments that appeared in Europe in the late 15th century. The viola da gamba is similar to a cello and played between the legs (viola da gamba can be translated as "leg viol"). Sutcliffe will also be joined by members of his performing group, Les Plaisirs Durable.
Richard Sutcliffe was born into a musical family and pursued his musical education at the Crane School of Music (State University of New York, Potsdam, N.Y.) where he graduated magnum cum laude with bachelor degrees in violin performance and music education in 1996.
An interest in history and early music led him to participate in the Crane School's collegium where he first became acquainted with the viola da gamba. Further pursuit of the viola da gamba led him to study at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel (Royal Conservatory of Brussels, Belgium, Flemish division) with Wieland Kuijken. In 2002 he completed two meistergrad diplomas in viola da gamba and chamber music with high honors. He is currently completing a doctorate of music at the Orpheus Instituut in Ghent, Belgium where he is specializing in the late baroque and early classical repertoire for the viola da gamba, pardessus de viole and baryton.
An active performer and teacher, Sutcliffe has been heard in Europe in many festivals and in the United States both as a soloist and as part of ensembles such as Les Plaisirs Durables, Ricercar Consort, Capilla Flamenca, Jacobean Viols, Catacoustic Consort and the soloists of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.
Sutcliffe has recorded for radio in France, Belgium and Germany and frequently appears as a soloist for J.S. Bach's St. John and St. Matthew's Passions with baroque and modern orchestras. He has also taught privately and at workshops such as the Amherst Early Music Festival and the Conclave of the Viola da Gamba Society of America.
A researcher as well as performer, Sutcliffe has been studying the late history of the viola da gamba family of instruments. He is one of the leading players and specialists on the smallest member of the viola da gamba family of instruments, the pardessus de viole. His research has been published in various American and European musicological journals. The subject of his doctoral dissertation, "The Viola da Gamba Family of Instruments from 1750 to 1850," will be published as a book, a series of recordings and editions of newly discovered music for pardessus de viole, viola da gamba and baryton (to appear between 2006 and 2007). His research has been published by the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles as part of their celebration of the 350th anniversary of the birth of Marin Marais.
Sutcliffe co-founded the group Les Plaisirs Durables in 2002 and has been actively recording and performing lesser known music for violas da gamba. The group was also active between 1996 and 2002 under the name Les Honnêtes Curieux. He is currently based in Brussels, Belgium.
The Pennsylvania Academy of Music is a non-profit pre-collegiate institution dedicated to the musical advancement of its students. Founded in 1990, the Academy attracts students from an immediate nine-county area as well as from around the world, who study disciplines ranging from instrumental, chamber music, orchestra, opera and vocal performance to music composition and theory, improvisation, accompanying ,jazz and recording. The Academy has a widely accomplished international faculty and is one of only 12 autonomous pre-collegiate music schools in the country accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music.
