Baroque Lute Recital CD

Lucas Harris began his musical life as a jazz guitarist in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. After graduating summa cum laude from Pomona College (Claremont, California), he studied for a year in Milan, Italy as one of the first Marco Fodella Foundation scholars, and the following year at the Hochschule fĂŒr KĂŒnste Bremen. Since returning to North America in 1998, Lucas has quickly become one of the busiest continuo lutenists in the U.S. and Canada: he has worked with such ensembles such as Apollo's Fire, Chatham Baroque, New York Collegium, Seattle Baroque, Arion, Les Voix Baroques, the Harp Consort, and the Smithsonian Chamber Players. Lucas’s passion for Baroque theatre has animated opera productions by the New York Metropolitan Opera, the Toronto Consort, the Boston Early Music Festival, and Opera Atelier. Lucas is now the regular lutenist with the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, and has been living in Toronto since 2004.Lucas has been invited as a guest director with the Pacific Baroque Orchestra (Vancouver), the Opera Program at Ohio State University (Columbus), and Zeffiro Productions (Huntsville). He has worked for modern instrument ensembles including the Metropolitan Opera, the Boston Symphony, the Orchestre Symphonique de MontrĂ©al, and Via Salzburg. In recent years he has given solo recitals on the New York Early Music Series, at St. Lawrence University, for the Minnesota Guitar Society, and at the Festival LamĂšque and the ÉtĂ© musical series in New Brunswick, Canada. He has also performed Baroque lute concerti with I Furiosi, Tafelmusik, Via Salzburg, and in a feature recital for the Young Artists Series on CBC radio.Lucas is an active teacher, appearing regularly on the faculty at Oberlin Conservatory's Baroque Performance Institute and the Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute. He has also taught for the International Baroque Institute at Longy, Amherst Early Music, the Lute Society of America Summer Seminar, and New York Continuo Collective. Lucas is also a founder and director of the Toronto Continuo Collective, a ‘pluck band’ dedicated to exploring the art of Baroque accompaniment (www.continuo.ca).Lucas appears on many recordings, including Eclatante amarante (with soprano Elisabeth Belgrano), the three-volume Ariosti Project (with viola d’amore specialist Tom Georgi), and Lute Legends (with pipa virtuosa Wen Zhao).Lucas was praised for his work with Les voix humaines in MontrĂ©al: “The revelation of the concert was the Torontonian lutenist Lucas Harris, who weaved a poetic thread through his infinitely subtle interventions. The sweetness and patience of his playing . . . was astonishing.” (Le Devoir)Recorded February 2008, St. John Chrysostom Catholic Church (Newmarket, Ontario)Recording engineer & producer: Norbert KraftDigital Editing: Lucas HarrisCover design: Rose ZhaoPhotography: Terry WilliamsInstruments: Michael Schreiner13-course ‘bass-rider’ lute after Frei, 2001, with gut bass strings (Biber, Kellner, Gallot, Reusner)13-course ‘swan-necked’ lute after Jauch, 2006, with overspun bass strings (Weiss, Hagen, Scheidler)Many thanks to Norbert Kraft & Bonnie Silver, GeneviĂšve Gilardeau, and David & Fran Harris for their support of this project.