Howard Mayer Brown Award

2023 Recipient: Arthur Haas

I am incredibly honored to be the 2023 recipient of the Howard Mayer Brown Award for Lifetime Achievement in the field of Early Music. And with immense gratitude, I happily accept the award. Since my earliest days under the guidance and influence of such notables as Albert Fuller, Kenneth Gilbert, Gustav Leonhardt, and above all, Alan Curtis, I have sought to uncover the glorious secrets of early music and combine that with my own 20th and 21st century sensibilities. I’ve done this in my own playing, and have always tried to impart these ideals to my students. And I continue in this quest. Thank you, Early Music America. – Arthur Haas

Arthur Haas is one of the most sought-after performers and teachers of Baroque music in the United States today. He received the top prize in the Paris International Harpsichord Competition in 1975 and then stayed in France for a number of years as an active member of the growing European early-music scene. While in Paris, he joined the Five Centuries Ensemble, a group acclaimed for its performances and recordings of Baroque and contemporary music. For 30 years, he was a member of the Aulos Ensemble, one of America’s premier period instrument ensembles, whose recordings of Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, Couperin, and Rameau won critical acclaim in the press, as well as Empire Viols, and the exciting new group, Gold and Glitter. He has recorded harpsichord music of Jean-Henry D’Anglebert, Forqueray, Purcell and his contemporaries, Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, François Couperin, Bernardo Pasquini, and the complete harpsichord works of Rameau. Most recent concert appearances include 7 performances of Bach’s Goldberg Variations all over the US since 2021. Annual summer workshop and festival appearances include the Virginia Baroque Academy, Portland (ME) Bach Virtuosi Festival, and the Amherst Early Music Festival, where he served as artistic director of the Baroque Academy from 2002 to 2011. Haas is professor of harpsichord and early music at Stony Brook University where he leads the award-winning Stony Brook Baroque Players and is Visiting Professor of Harpsichord at the Yale School of Music. He was also a founding faculty member of Juilliard’s historical performance program.

Past Recipients