The Baroque Ensemble from the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College
The Baroque Ensemble from the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College; Masayuki Maki, Director. The Ensemble has been performs works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on instruments appropriate to the period. Based at Lafrak Hall (Queens College) he group has been heard at The Church of the Holy Trinity (New York), The Church in the Gardens (Forest Hills), King Manor Museum (Jamaica, Queens), and on the acclaimed Chamber Music Live series.
A Downtown Music debut presented in partnership with Young Musicians of Westchester: Learn more at YoungMusiciansofWestchester.org
Since its 2009 inception with a production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo, the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College’s Baroque Ensemble has been performing works of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Under the direction of pianoforte specialist Masayuki Maki, the group focuses on this music of the Baroque period using baroque bows and historically informed performance practice. In addition to the group’s regular performances at Lefrak Hall (Queens College), the group has also performed at The Church of the Holy Trinity (New York), The Church in the Gardens (Forest Hills), King Manor Museum (Jamaica, Queens), and on the acclaimed Chamber Music Live series.
This past season the Ensemble performed Johann Sebastian Bach’s secular cantata Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht, better known as the Coffee Cantata.
Masayuki Maki
Masayuki Maki specializes in historical keyboard instruments. He was formerly Associate Instructor of harpsichord performance and keyboard accompaniment at Indiana University and is now Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, teaching the harpsichord, organ, fortepiano, and chamber music. He coordinates the Juilliard School’s historical keyboard collection and is also on faculty with The Academy of Fortepiano Performance at the Catskill Mountain Foundation. He has played with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, New York Classical Players, and various chamber ensembles and soloists. Masayuki graduated from Musashino Academia Musicae, the Early Music Institute at Indiana University, Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College, Smarano Organ Academy in Italy, and received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University. Masayuki traveled to Quito, Ecuador this summer where he co-founded Orquesta Académica del Pacífico, an international youth orchestra festival that shares vision and passion for music education and cultural exchange.
In addition to performing and teaching, he also works at the Metropolitan Opera, Trinity Wall Street, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center as a harpsichord and organ technician.