TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
9th Biennial Conference on Baroque Music 

Guest Speakers

John Butt, Robin Leaver and Hans-Joachm Schulze


John Butt [abstract]

As an undergraduate at Cambridge University, John Butt held the office of organ scholar at King's College. Continuing as a graduate student, he studied the music of Bach, surveying articulation markings in autograph manuscripts and receiving his PhD in 1987. He was subsequently a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen and a Fellow of Magdalene College Cambridge, joining the faculty at UC Berkeley in 1989 as University Organist and Assistant Professor in Music (Associate Professor in 1992). In Autumn 1997 he returned to Cambridge as a university lecturer and fellow of King's College.

Three books have recently been published by Cambridge University Press: his study of articulation, Bach Interpretation, a handbook on Bach's  Mass in B Minor, and Music Education and the Art of Performance in the German Baroque (1994). He is also editor of the Cambridge Companion to Bach (1997), consultant editor to the Oxford Companion to Bach (1999) and is currently working on a study of the philosophy and criticism of historical performance practice.

John Butt has continued to be active as a performer, directing several choirs in Cambridge and Berkeley and appearing as a solo organist, harpsichordist and director in Britain and the United States. Seven recordings on organ, harpsichord and clavichord have been released by Harmonia Mundi (Pachelbel, Cabanilles, Bach, Purcell, Kuhnau and Frescobaldi). His recording of the Telemann harpsichord Fantasies is to be released in September. He has also recorded (with violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock) Bach's sonatas for violin and obbligato harpsichord. As director of the UC Berkeley Chamber Chorus 1991-7, and the Philharmonia Baroque Chorale, he has participated in many concerts and recordings with the Philharmonia Baroque orchestra and its director, Nicholas McGegan. He has been guest conductor and a regular soloist for the Philharmonia Baroque orchestra. He has also been guest conductor in the Göttingen Handel Festspiele and directed a newly discovered Scarlatti opera at the 1996 Berkeley Festival. Since returning to King's College, Cambridge he has founded the new mixed choir "King's Voices". In 1998 he performed throughout the UK and the USA, including Handel organ concertos with St Paul's Chamber Orchestra of Minnesota, and in 1999 appears at the Carmel Bach Festival.

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Robin Leaver [abstract]

Professor of sacred music. Theol.Dip., Trinity College, Bristol, England; D.theol. cum laude Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, the Netherlands. Studied with A. Casper Honders. Recipient, Winston Churchill Fellowship (1971); honorary member of the Riemenschneider Bach Institute (1973); first recipient of the Dominick A. Iorio Faculty Research Prize, Rider University (1997). President of the Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Hymnologie (1985-89); board of directors, Charles Wesley Society (1989-). Member of Scholarly Advisory Committee for the Kessler Reformation Collection, Pitts Theology Library, Emory University (1995-). Author of more than 25 books, including Bachs theologische Bibliothek (1983), J.S. Bach and Scripture (1985), The Theological Character of Music in Worship (1989), "Goostly psalmes and spirituall songes": English and Dutch Metrical Psalters from Coverdale to Utenhove 1535-1566 (1991), Come to the Feast: The Original and Translated Hymns of Martin H. Franzman (1994) and (with Joyce Ann Zimmerman) Liturgy and Music: Lifetime Learning (1998). Contributor to many reference and other books, including The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (1980), The New Grove Dictionary of American Music (1986), and The Hymnal 1982 Companion (1990-95). Author of more than 200 articles and reviews in journals issued in England, Germany, the Netherlands, Africa, Korea, Japan, as well as the United States, including American Organist, Bach-Jahrbuch, Choral Review, MLA Notes, Musik und Kirche, Reformed Liturgy and Music, Worship. Editor of the series Studies in Liturgical Musicology; co-editor of the series Drew Liturgical Studies; contributing editor to Jahrbuch für Liturgik und Hymnologie (1976-), The Hymnology Annual (1989-) and editorial consultant for liturgy and church music for the forthcoming new edition of Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Active participant in symposia in Europe and North America, including Helmut Rilling's Bach-Akademie, Stuttgart, Herzog August bibliothek, Wolfenbuttel, The Newberry Library, Chicago, and the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam. Author of program/liner notes and/or pre-concert lecturer for the Taverner Choir and Players, London; the Early Music Centre, London; the English Bach Festival, London; The Gabrieli Consort, England; The Bach Choir of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; The Berkeley Festival, California; etc., for such conductors as Flummerfelt, Funfgeld, Leonhardt, McCreesh, Parrott, Shaw, and others. Experienced in pastoral and church music ministries. Consultant to the British Broadcasting Corporation, London; Oxford University Press; and to the editorial committees that produced the Episcopal Hymnal 1982 (1985), The United Methodist Hymnal (1989), Evangelisches Gesangbuch (1993) and the Moravian Book of Worship (1995). Listed in Contemporary Authors, Dictionary of International Biography, Who's Who in the World. Faculty, Latimer House, Oxford, England (1977-84); Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, England (1984-85); Visiting professor of liturgy, Drew University (1988-); Westminster (1984-).
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Hans-Joachim Schulze [abstract]

Hans-Joachim Schulze was born in Leipzig in 1934. Between 1952 and 1957 he studied at the Musikhochschule and the University of Leipzig, specializing in Musicology and German language and literature. Among his teachers were Heinrich Besseler, Rudolf Eller, Paul Rubardt, Walter Serauky and Helmuth Christian Wolff. In 1957 he became assistant at the Bach-Archiv in Leipzig and from 1974-79 acting director. In 1979 he was a contributor to the "Nationalen Forschungs- und Gedenkstätten 'Johann Sebastian Bach' der DDR. In 1986 he became director of the regional Bach-Archiv and since 1992 he is director of the Bach-Archiv in Leipzig and project leader of the New Bach edition. In 1979 he received his doctorate at the University of Rostock with Studien zur Bach-überlieferung im 18. Jahrhundert. In 1990 he was made honorary lecturer at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg and in 1993 was apponted honorary professor at the Hochschule for Music and Theatre in Leipzig.

His publications include Bach-Dokumente I-III (1963-1972, Vol. 1-2 with Werner Neumann); Bach Compendium 1-4 (1986-1989 with Christoph Wolff) as well as numerous papers and commentaries to the facsimile editions. He is also the editor of the Bach- Jahrbuch since 1975 with Christoph Wolff.

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Last updated on 18 May 2000 by Yo Tomita