Notes on the Director
Carmina director and harpsichordist Vera Kochanowsky is a graduate of the Oberlin and New England Conservatories and holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stanford University, where she specialized in the performance practices of the 17th and 18th centuries. Dr. Kochanowsky was also the recipient of a Fulbright grant for harpsichord and early music studies in Europe. Her teachers have included John Gibbons, Arthur Haas, George Houle, Alan Curtis and Gordon Murray. Since arriving in the Washington DC area in 1990, Dr. Kochanowsky has been active as a harpsichord soloist, chamber musician and singer, performing with such ensembles as the Bach Sinfonia, Musikanten, the Mount Vernon Orchestra, the Washington Kantorei and Collegium Cantorum. Her solo performance at the Phillips Collection was praised by The Washington Post as “a first rate recital... poised, pristine, luxuriant.” She has also made solo appearances at the National Gallery of Art and the Montpelier Cultural Arts Center (winner of the 1995 and 2002 recitalist competition). She has concertized extensively with harpsichordist Thomas MacCracken, and together they have released two CDs: Pour 2 clavecins and A Decade of Duos. In 1997 Dr. Kochanowsky founded the early music vocal ensemble Carmina and she has served as its director since then. In 2006 she founded a second vocal ensemble, Illuminare.
Assistant director Dr. Hubert Beckwith teaches music history and literature at George Mason University. After receiving a PhD in musicology from the University of Maryland, he served as the first executive secretary of the American Handel Society. He currently serves as music director at Crusader Lutheran Church in Rockville MD. A composer, arranger, and writer on music, Dr. Beckwith has sung with Carmina since 1998 and often prepares performing editions for the group. For its 2004 concert at the German Embassy, he composed a birthday tribute to Beethoven that was enthusiastically received by singers and audience alike.
