Jesse Lepkoff, director, early flutes and recorders, graduated from The New England Conservatory, Boston. He received his graduate education at the Royal Conservatory in the Netherlands with flutist Wilbert Hazelzet. His many performances include appearances with The Smithsonian Chambers Players, The Musicians of Swanne Alley, The Newberry Consort, Joel Fredriksen & Ensemble Phoenix, The Arcadia Players and as a soloist with The National Symphony under the direction of Christopher Hogwood. He has appeared at many major festivals around the world including Tanglewood, Aix en Provence, Wolf Trap, BEMF, Holland Festival Oude Muziek, Utrect, Festival d’Ile de France among others. The Springfield Union News reported: “His phrasing seemed to defy the human body’s oxygen requirements, while remaining infinitely graceful and acoustically penetrating.” He performs and records regularly with The Boston Camerata, and since 1984 has toured with them in 14 countries, and has recorded for American and European radios, as well as for the Erato, Fleur de Son, and Nonesuch labels. In the U.S. he has appeared many times live on WGBH radio, the BBC and given lecture concerts at the Smithsonian, New England Conservatory and Louisiana University, Lafayette. Mr. Lepkoff also is a guitarist and singer/songwriter and has recorded 2 CDs of his own Brazilian inspired original songs.
John McKean is a harpsichordist and musicologist based in Boston, where he serves on the faculty of the Longy School of Music. Frequently in demand as both a soloist and continuo player, he has performed extensively throughout Europe and North America, with concert engagements bringing him to venues as far afield as the Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Fondazione Cini (Venice), Museu da Música (Lisbon), St. Martin-in-the-Fields (London), Norðurljós Hall (Reykjavík, Iceland), and the Philips Collection (Washington, DC). Critically acclaimed for his “intelligent” and “precise” playing (The Washington Post) as well as his “sonorous brilliance and thrilling, dance-like energy” (Allgäuer Zeitung), Dr. McKean performs with leading American and European ensembles, including Apollo’s Fire, Emmanuel Music, the Catacoustic Consort, Camerata Vocale Freiburg, Habsburger Camerata, and has appeared with the Jacksonville, Naples, Portland (Maine), and Pittsburg symphony orchestras (among others). He counts among his live radio broadcasts performances on NPR, BBC Radio 3, and Deutschlandradio Berlin.
Dr. McKean holds degrees in German Studies and Harpsichord Performance from Oberlin College/Conservatory and an advanced performance diploma from the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg (Germany), where his studied with Lisa Crawford/Webb Wiggins and Robert Hill respectively. He received additional instruction over the years from some of the greatest modern masters of historical keyboards, including Arthur Haas, Jacques Ogg, Skip Sempé, Jesper Christensen, Ketil Haugsand, Mitzi Meyerson, Richard Egarr, and Gustav Leonhardt. He also holds an M.Phil. and a Ph.D. in historical musicology from the University of Cambridge (U.K). His master’s thesis unearthed new details concerning the life and works of French harpsichord composer Gaspard Le Roux, while his doctoral dissertation examined the development of keyboard technique during the German Baroque. For several years he served as an assistant editor of the Oxford University Press journal Early Music. Beyond his musicological work and performing career, he also maintains an active interest in instrument building (he regularly performs on his own reconstruction of a 17th-century Flemish harpsichord), music publishing, typography, and exploring the remote corners of his home state of Maine.
