Desert Baroque

Monica Jakuc Leverett is Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor Emerita of Music at Smith College, where she taught from 1969 until 2008.  A champion of both women composers and contemporary works, she has played solo and chamber music concerts on three continents. Since 2015, she has also performed as a toy piano artist.

 

Inspired by Malcolm Bilson, Monica has been performing on early pianos since 1986. As guest artist in a series of Historical Piano concerts, she has played instruments from The Frederick Historic Piano Collection in Ashburnham, Massachusetts. A former board member of Arcadia Players, New England’s period instrument ensemble, she has frequently performed with them on her two fortepianos by Paul McNulty: a 5 ½ octave Walter design (c.1803), and a 6½ octave copy of Graf’s Op. 318 (c. 1819). 

 

In August 2015 she performed a program called “Szymanowka Études in their Time” on an original Graf piano at the Forte/Piano Festival at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. 

 

With noted early music violinist Dana Maiben, she recorded Francesca LeBrun’s complete Sonatas for Fortepiano and Violin, Opus 1, on Dorian.  She has also recorded fortepiano sonatas by Marianne von Martinez, Marianna von Auenbrugger, and Joseph Haydn on Titanic.  Her newest CD features fantasies for fortepiano by Mozart, C.P.E. Bach, and Haydn, plus Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata.

 

Please visit www.monicajakucleverett.com.