Jan Waterfield
Jan Waterfield read music at Girton College, Cambridge, where she was also a choral scholar. This was followed by postgraduate studies in harpsichord and piano with John Toll and David Willison at the RAM in London, where she won prizes for both Lieder Accompaniment and Continued Playing.
At the RCS, Jan teaches the wealth of keyboard music before 1750, takes sideways leaps into the Opera School (for baroque ‘style’) and to the Fair Access/Education departments for Coaching. She is also very interested in coaching as an aid to teaching; the questions we ask ourselves are vital for a musician’s progress. As a life-long meditator, Jan is also curious as to mental-emotional state when playing & how that can be developed best for each individual.
After graduating from the RAM in Harpisocord, she was a member of the prestigious European Union Baroque Orchestra, working alongside Jaap ter Linden and Andrew Manze. Jan has been a member of Paul McCreesh’s Gabrieli Consort since 1993, taking part in their many award-winning projects. Since 2009 she has been their principal harpsichordist and was a major player (both as organist and researcher) in their recent disc ‘A New Venetian Coronation’, the recipient of a 2013 gramophone award. She is also a regular player with the Academy of Ancient Music, the Classical Opera Company, His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts, La Serenissima, the Scottish Ensemble, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Ludus Baroque.
She was a contributor to John Eliot Gardiner’s Bach Cantata Pilgrimage of 2000 the extraordinary series of live recordings made from a year’s journey through Europe, performing the whole cycle of Bach’s church cantatas. Her solo highlights range from recording the complete virginal works of Martin Peerson to playing Gorecki’s concerto for amplified harpsichord live from London’s Wigmore Hall on BBC R3. Jan has been active as a teacher at the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh, the School in London, the Academie Baroque Européene in France as well as both Heriot-Watt and Edinburgh Universities and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Her experience as a vocal coach results in a steady stream of singers beating a path to her door. She is a regular duo partner of the soprano Mhairi Lawson, the bass Brian Bannatyne-Scott and the ‘cellist Christopher Suckling. She can sometimes be found playing the accordion with the klezmer group ‘KleyneKlezmer’.
“…highlights include the gentle warmth of Jan Waterfield’s organ playing…”(BBC Music Magazine,2012)
“…wonderfully delicate chamber organ solos, played by Jan Waterfield…”(Bachtrack 2012)