The performers

American harpsichordist John McKean encountered his instrument and the field of historical performance in his early youth. In addition to studies at Oberlin Conservatory and the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, Germany, John has received instruction from some of the greatest modern masters of historic keyboards, including Jesper Christensen, Richard Egarr, and Gustav Leonhardt. He has performed throughout Europe and North America as both a soloist and as a member of numerous ensembles and baroque orchestras, including the Catacoustic Consort, Camerata Vocale Freiburg, Apollo's Fire, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and is a founding member of the Habsburger Camerata. Past concert engagements have brought him to the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Philips Collection in Washington D.C., Fondazione Cini in Venice and the Montisi Music Festival in Tuscany, Festwochen Attersee and St Florian in Austria, the Festival van Vlaanderen in Belgium and the Händel Festspiele in Göttingen, Germany. John's musical expertise extends beyond the realm of performance to encompass music typesetting, musicology, and instrument building; he regularly performs on his own reconstruction of a 17th century Flemish harpsichord. Alongside his performing career, John is currently pursuing doctoral work in musicology under the supervision of John Rink and Martin Ennis at Selwyn College, Cambridge.

Francis Knights studied at the universities of London, Oxford and Nottingham. He has held music directorships at several Oxford colleges, and research positions at the Royal Northern College of Music and King’s College, London; since 2008 he has been Director of Studies in Music at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. His research interests include organology, cathedral music, performance practice and manuscript sources, and his compositions have been performed in St Paul’s, Portsmouth, Lichfield, Oxford and Dublin cathedrals. Francis studied harpsichord with Robert Woolley and David Roblou and organ with Harry Bramma, and is currently engaged in a long-term project to perform the complete Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, on harpsichord, virginals, clavichord and organ. www.francisknights.co.uk

Dan Tidhar was first introduced to the harpsichord at the Jerusalem Early Music Workshop, where he was taught by John Toll and Ketil Haugsand and has later been regularly employed as tutor and accompanist. At university, Dan studied harpsichord with Mitzi Meyerson in Berlin and Ketil Haugsand in Cologne. In parallel to completing his PhD in digital musicology (TU-Berlin, computerscience department), he also completed a Masters in harpsichord performance at the UdK-Berlin. Dan performs regularly as a soloist as well continuo player with various ensembles, such as The King’s Consort, Retrospect Ensemble, the Amphion Consort, L'Avventura London, the Berliner Cembalo Ensemble and others. Dan is often seen on stage by Cambridge early music audiences as a player and/or tuner of historical keyboard instruments. In recent years, he has held various research fellowships and published on harpsichord tuning and temperament, mainly in the context of recording analysis. www.cambridge-baroque-labs.com

Ryan Mark studied violin, oboe and keyboards at the Purcell School and Music at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge (2008). Thereafter he was research assistant to the late Christopher Hogwood, for whom he worked on over 60 publications of music from the 16th to the 20th centuries, including their co-edition of Corelli’s violin sonatas Op.5 for Bärenreiter.

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