David Baskeyfield
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David Baskeyfield read Law at St John's College, Oxford. He held the college's organ scholarship, directing or accompanying the college choir in two weekly services of choral Evensong in the Anglican tradition. Having straddled these manifestations of good and evil for
the duration of his undergraduate years, he made what he considers the less unconscionable choice to pursue a career in music and began a Master's degree at Eastman. He is now pursuing a doctorate at Eastman, where he continues in the studio of Prof. David Higgs and studies improvisation with Prof. William Porter.
At Oxford, he took organ lessons from John Wellingham and David Sanger. He gave regular lunchtime and evening recitals in the college chapel as part of a series sponsored by the college Music Society and was active as an accompanist in college and across the university. Alongside a growing interest in a scholarly approach to the performance of early music and contrapuntal improvisation, he could often be found in disheveled black tie in the President's office at the Oxford Union Society playing low ragtime and cabaret songs on a battered upright piano. He subsequently spent a year as organ scholar of both St Patrick's and Christ Church Cathedrals in Dublin, accompanying and occasionally directing the cathedrals' respective choirs of men and boys and mixed voices for daily services of choral Evensong. Free from the manifold inconveniences of legal philosophy, access to the two cathedrals' contrasting instruments - an enormous Willis at St Patrick's and a modern instrument with tracker action by Kenneth Jones and Flentrop at Christ Church - allowed for exploration of a wide variety of repertoire. He has participated in masterclasses given by Marie-Claire Alain, Eduardo Bellotti, Stephen Bicknell, Kevin Bowyer, David Briggs, Bine Katrine Bryndorff, Hans Davidsson, Marie-Bernadette Dufourcet-Hakim, David Goode, Naji Hakim, Matthew Halls, Nicolas Kynaston, Ludger Lohmann, Jacques van Oortmerssen, Anne Page, James Parsons, Joel Speerstra and Harald Vogel. He currently plays at St Paul's Episcopal Church in downtown Rochester and enjoys access from time to time to the large Wurlitzer organ in the Auditorium Theatre. He cooks and enjoys heavy red wine. |
Last updated November 12, 2008.