Distinguished Scholar and Performer to Present a Master Class at Holy Cross

WORCESTER, Mass. – Raymond Erickson, professor of music at the City University of New York, Queens College and the Graduate Center, will present a master class on Friday, Feb. 20, from 12 – 2 p.m. in Brooks Concert Hall at the College of the Holy Cross.

In the master class, titled “Performing Bach and Haydn,” Erickson will work on stage with Holy Cross students Julia Hamilton ‘12 (Brooks Scholar, cello), Sarah Cicchetti ‘12 (violin), David Ogulnick ‘10 (Brooks Scholar, cello), Harun Rafi ‘10 (viola), and Samuel Partyka ‘10 (piano). The master class is free and open to the public.

A widely-published scholar and musician, Erickson made his orchestral debut as a pianist with the Schumann Piano Concerto as a teenager. For the last 30 years he has been known as a harpsichordist, closely associated with Aston Magna since its beginning, both as harpsichordist and as director of the noted Aston Magna Academies.

Erickson is editor of Schubert’s Vienna (Yale University Press, 1997), a multi-disciplinary treatment of lecturers at the 1993 Aston Magna Academy, and author of The Worlds of Johann Sebastian Bach (Amadeus Press, 2009). He has done important work in medieval music theory and 18th- and 19-century historical performance practice. He is heard on several recordings, including the first American period-instrument recording of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos and a CD devoted to songs and instrumental music of Henry Purcell.

Erickson is the recipient of an honorary membership in Phi Beta Kappa, the Endowed Chair in Music at the University of Alabama (Tuscaloosa), the William H. Scheide Research Award of the American Bach Society, and the Officers Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was the founding director of the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College (1981) and served as Dean of Arts and Humanities at the College. He is a frequent pre-concert lecturer for Lincoln Center and the New York Collegium.

A graduate of Whittier College in California, Erickson holds a Ph.D. in the history of music from Yale. Erickson has recently performed recitals in the U.S., Germany and Austria. His recent research in Leipzig, on J.S. Bach, was sponsored by Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.