Howard Mayer Brown Award

2024 Recipient: Elisabeth Wright

Harpsichordist Elisabeth Wright is noted for her versatility as soloist and chamber musician, her expertise in the art of basso continuo improvisation, and for her distinguished teaching. Professor Emerita of harpsichord and fortepiano at the Historical Performance Institute of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University where she taught for 39 years, she is in frequent demand for masterclasses and seminars pertaining to performance practices of 16th to 18th century music. Following graduate studies with Gustav Leonhardt at the Amsterdam (now Sweelinck) Conservatory, she has maintained a vibrant international career performing throughout Europe, the Americas, Canada, Australia, Russia and China in such noted venues as Wigmore Hall, La Sala dei Giganti, Palazzo Poggio Imperiale, Boston and Berkeley Early Music Festivals, Cervantino, Utrecht, Rotterdam, Bolzano, Tage Alter Musik, Lufthansa of London, Semana de Música Antigua Estella, Aston Magna, Piccolo Spoleto and Mostly Mozart. Soloist with Tafelmusik, Pacifica, Seattle, Portland and Lyra Baroque Orchestras, she partnered with the eminent Baroque violinist Stanley Ritchie as Duo Geminiani, and performs with Música Ficta and numerous other artists. She has recorded for Classic Masters, Milan-Jade, Focus, Arion, Arts Music, Música Ficta, Pro Música Antiqua, Centaur and Lindoro. A perpetual student of languages and interested in the relationship between text and music, her research on musical settings of Giambattista Marino’s poetry was published in The Sense of Marino: Literature, Fine Arts and Music, edited by Francesco Guardiani for Legas Press. Additionally, she translated Galliano Ciliberti’s survey of ‘Bonporti’s Life and Works’ in The Complete Works of Francesco Antonio Bonporti, edited by Max Sobel for IU Press. Founding member of The Seattle Early Music Guild and Bloomington Early Music Association, she has served as guest professor and adjudicator at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, adjudicator for the Jurow harpsichord competition, on the board of Early Music America, as panelist for the National Endowment for the Arts, PEW and PennPat and for early keyboard societies, conferences, and academies.

Recent activities include concerts for Lyra Baroque, recitals and masterclasses in Rochester, MN and Bloomington, IN, two chamber tours in the Pacific NW for the Salish Sea Festival, four programs at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival and tours with Música Ficta in Mexico, Poland, Colombia and the USA. Two recording projects completed in 2023 will be released in the coming months: One is Música Ficta’s three-cd recording of 17^th century music contained in the Bogotá Cathedral Archives, which will be released on the Spanish label, Lindoro, the other, Pièces de Clavecin by Jean Henry D’Anglebert for solo harpsichord.

I am immensely touched and grateful for the honor of being the recipient of the 2024 Howard Mayer Brown Lifetime Achievement Award! It is heartwarming to be recognized as a musician who has made contributions to the field during the past five decades during which I have been dedicated to performance and to teaching, reaping the rewards of immersing oneself in the world of historical performance in myriad ways. One of the greatest gifts has been that my professional life as Professor at the Historical Performance Institute of the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University has granted me the opportunity to teach so many bright, talented students from all over the world, and to introduce them to unfamiliar keyboard instruments and a new way of approaching music through the lens of its broadest cultural context. It has also enabled me to nurture my penchant for being a perpetual student, drawing together my interest in all the arts, history, literature, and languages. Teaching is so rewarding because of the ever-present reciprocally gratifying give and take!  I am passionate about instilling insatiable curiosity in my students and encouraging them to find and express their own unique voice. They, in turn, have taught me a great deal, made me question, reflect and re-examine, their inquisitiveness, imagination and energy providing creative fuel for me!

Throughout my life as performer, I have been fortunate to make music with so many wonderful musicians who have inspired me and broadened my horizons. To be able to dedicate one’s professional life to what one loves the most is such a privilege, and I am most grateful to accept this award which validates the worthiness of my career. Thank you for this honor!
– Elisabeth Wright

Past Recipients