Joan Benson (1925-2020)
Read More:
Joan Benson: Clavichord Champion, published by Early Music America in April 2018
2019 Review of The Joan Benson Collection: Clavichord and Fortepiano
The Joan Benson Clavichord Award, launched in 2021, is an annual award for a current outstanding American clavichord artist, teacher, researcher, composer, clavichord maker or organizer of clavichord symposiums, master classes or sessions for children. The intention is to show the significance of soft, tender tones through the clavichord. The awardee will have awakened a vivid appreciation for this delicate keyboard instrument and shown its unique ability to express music through delicate, dynamic-rich, highly-nuanced sounds.
The distinguished keyboardist Joan Benson died on January 1, 2020, aged 94. She studied with Percy Grainger at Interlochen before traveling to Europe, where she worked with Edwin Fischer and Olivier Messiaen. In the second half of her life, she taught at Stanford and the University of Oregon and was one of the early proponents of the works of C.P.E. Bach.
A voluntary selection committee nominated by Joan Benson will choose the recipient of the Joan Benson Clavichord Award. Their decision is final.
Previous Recipients
2023: Alissa Duryee
2022: Carol lei Breckenridge
2021: Anna Maria McElwain
2024 Recipient: Paul Irvin
During more than forty years in the Chicago area Paul built fifty-two harpsichords and sixteen clavichords of various types while servicing, repairing and upgrading a large variety and number of instruments. This experience provided many examples of what worked to varying degrees and what did not. It also revealed an increasing number of modern features which did not agree with the antiques, historical documents, or modern historical research.
After moving to Portland OR in 2012, building new instruments was put aside to give time to research and experiment with the consequences that closer copying of historical choices of materials, features and processes has on the sound and touch of early keyboard instruments. In order to try to dampen the influence of using current modern sound expectations to judge results of these explorations, Paul uses a “comparative organology” approach in which the sound qualities and playing characteristics of other types of instruments of the time period being considered, as well as the needs of the music of that period, serve as criteria.
He discovered that producing a truly musical, long tone from a pluck was a challenge, but far more challenging was to produce one that can be varied in dynamics, pitch and intensity through a player’s finger movement of a tangent. However, he is still enjoying the effort to regain the level of musical properties that made clavichords so cherished historically.
He has been a board member and officer of several organizations (Chicago Area Early Music Association, Midwestern Historical Keyboard Society, Western Early Keyboard Association), and a long-time member of others (American Musical Instrument Society, The Friends of St. Cecilia’s Hall, The Galpin Society, FoMRHI and the National Music Museum).
His published work includes a variety of articles and book reviews for various publications in North America and Europe, including Continuo, Early Keyboard Journal, Early Music America, and a continuing series of articles in Harpsichord & Fortepiano magazine.
Thank you very much to Early Music America’s consideration of me for the Joan Benson Clavichord Award. I would like to accept this honor, and extend a thank you to all the various researchers, builders and players who have contributed to my work with clavichords. “
Paul Irvin
