Mitzi Meyerson is a world-renowned harpsichordist and teacher. She maintains a sterling reputation for her concerts and recordings, and has taught hundreds of students over the last thirty years, many of whom went on to be successful artists in their own right.
Mitzi Meyerson specializes in researching little-known or lost works for the harpsichord, which she then brings to light in recordings. She has released over sixty recordings to excellent critical acclaim; notable amongst them are solo albums of Dietrich Buxtehude, Jacques Duphly, Musikalischer Parnassus of JFK Fischer, ordres from the Fourth Book of Francois Couperin, Componenti Musicali of Gottlieb Muffat, and the complete harpsichord works by Richard Jones.
Her CD prizes include the "Choc" award from Le Monde de la Musique, "Editor′s Choice" from Gramophone, and the "Diapason d′Or". Ms Meyerson′s releases include two double-disc sets of Georg Böhm and CB Balbastre (Glossa); both productions were on the "Bestenliste" for the prestigious Deutsche Schallplatten Kritik. The two-disc complete harpsichord works of Richard Jones was chosen as "CD of the Month" by Toccata, "Editor′s Choice" in Concerto, and received unilaterally positive reviews from many publications including Gramophone, which described it as "the best harpsichord disc of the year".
Mitzi Meyerson has discovered several collections of completely unknown music, and continues to do active research in this field. She is currently at work on two solo projects and a new disc with her trio colleagues, Kreeta Maria Kentala and Lauri Pulakka. Their previous collaborations were Chamber Airs for the Violin by Richard Jones, and Sonatas for Violin by Gian Battista Somis. Both of these were received with glowing reviews.
Ms Meyerson is a full professor of historical keyboard instruments (harpsichord and fortepiano) at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. She specializes in working with modern pianists to obtain a Baroque-style perspective in the performance of Bach, developing an awareness of articulation, harmonic structure, and many other aspects. The position at the UdK was especially created for Madame Wanda Landowska, and this institution was the first university ever to offer harpsichord studies in modern times.
Mitzi Meyerson has many outside interests. She is a certified doula (birth assistant), has been a university lecturer on doula training, and has personally assisted at a hundred births. She has a keen love of photography and has been featured in several successful one-woman shows in Germany and England.
Georg Friedrich Händel completely dominated the musical scene in 18th century London. A rich musical life continued in concert halls, theatres, and churches, but many of the excellent composers of that time were simply wiped out by the overwhelming presence of Händel. I have long been interested in discovering some of these lost artists, bringing them back into their rightful position as the great musicians of their time. (article by Mitzi Meyerson) [read more...]
Emboldened by her experiences with the solo keyboard of the shadowy English composer from the first half of the 18th century, Richard Jones (the Sets of Lessons for the Harpsichord, London, 1732 – recorded in 2010), and propelled by her zest for rediscovering unwarrantedly neglected music for her instrument, Mitzi Meyerson has returned to the music of this enigmatic figure with a second release on Glossa: Jones’s Chamber Airs for a Violin (and Thorough Bass). This collection of violin sonatas was published in London and 1735 and for the new recording Meyerson is joined by violinist Kreeta-Maria Kentala and cellist Lauri Pulakka. How much music from this time is lying mouldering unloved and in archives, but deserving being put in front of audiences today is, of course, at best an inexact art. However, as listeners, we can be grateful for the labours of talented performers like Mitzi Meyerson, who are also equipped with the appropriate scholarly skills and the intuitive nous to help them separate the wheat from the chaff. [read more...]
It is not only discerning music lovers around the globe who are giving a warm welcome to the recordings which are being published on Glossa; critical approval in the specialist media has been joining in as well. One example of the latter is the newly-instigated International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) which, for its inaugural 2011 edition, has chosen no less than nine of Glossa’s recent releases in its initial nominations. [read more...]
Mitzi Meyerson has been delving of late for Glossa into unjustly forgotten keyboard repertory from the Baroque. Praised by no less a critic than Nicholas Kenyon for her recording of Gottlieb Muffat’s Componimenti Musicali per il Cembalo (“Eureka! I’ve known these wonderful pieces for years, having bought an old edition of the music, but have never heard them properly performed. So it’s a joy to hear Mitzi Meyerson’s glorious realisation of these 18th-century suites, which lie at the heart of the high baroque style...”), Meyerson now turns her attention to the shadowy figure of Englishman Richard Jones. [read more...]
There are keyboard players whose names adorn books of technical exercises – Carl Czerny, Charles-Louis Hanon and JB Cramer spring to mind – but Mitzi Meyerson, Glossa’s very own expert in sumo wrestling, social work and a Persian cat named Yofi, is cast from a somewhat different mould. It will not just be piano and harpsichord students who will have cause to recall the Chicago-born artist but any number of her fellow citizens (including non keyboard-playing cabbies) now that the ‘Mitzi Meyerson Way’ has officially been opened outside the main entrance to Roosevelt University on downtown Wabash Avenue in Chicago’s 2nd Ward. [read more...]
Mitzi Meyerson’s insight into (and experience with) the harpsichord literature of the Baroque is such that when she makes a visit to the recording studio, one knows that something rare, fascinating and illuminating will emerge. This has been the case in recent years with both the Claviersuiten by Georg Böhm and the Musique de Salon of Claude-Bénigne Balbastre (which have also appeared on Glossa); the latest exploration beyond the mainstream undertaken by Mitzi Meyerson – Muffat’s Componimenti Musicali – is charged with the same character and sense of expectation. This is not the Georg Muffat who studied in Paris with Lully but his son, Gottlieb (also known as Theofilo), who spent much of his career in Vienna and whose set of six harpsichord suites Componimenti Musicali appeared towards the end of the 1730s. [read more...]