Ars Lyrica Houston

Founded in 1998 by harpsichordist and conductor Matthew Dirst, Ars Lyrica Houston brings world-class performances of early music to Houston. The ensemble’s distinctive programming favors little-known dramatic and chamber works that merit revival, and its Zilkha Hall series “sets the agenda for imaginative period-instrument programming in Houston,” according to the Houston Chronicle. Ars Lyrica’s numerous premières include the first American performance of Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo e della Verità and Houston premières of Jacopo Peri’s Euridice, John Blow’s Venus and Adonis, Handel’s Flavio, and Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610, among other works. These pioneering efforts have begun to attract international attention: the ensemble’s latest CD, on the Dorian-Sono Luminus label, features rising opera stars Jamie Barton and Ava Pine in the world première recording of Johann Adolf Hasse’s Marc’Antonio e Cleopatra. This disc, hailed recently by Early Music America as “a thrilling performance that glows in its quieter moments and sparkles with vitality,” was nominated for a Grammy Award® for Best Opera 2011. Ars Lyrica’s first recording, a Naxos CD of Alessandro Scarlatti’s Euridice dall’Inferno and La Concettione della Beata Vergine, received similar critical acclaim, including a Gramophone recommendation for its “impassioned performance of strongly characterized and eloquent music.” More information on Ars Lyrica can be found at www.arslyricahouston.org.

Ars Lyrica Artistic Director Matthew Dirst is the first American to win major international prizes in both organ and harpsichord, including first prize at the American Guild of Organists Young Artist Competition (1990) and second prize at the Warsaw International Harpsichord Competition (1993). Widely admired for his stylish playing and conducting of Baroque music especially, the Dallas Morning News recently praised his “crisp but expressive direction” of the Monteverdi 1610 Vespers, which “yielded impressive precision, but also rhythmic buoyancy and rhetorical freedom,” while naming this performance “Best Classical Performance of 2010.” Early Music America described his most recent solo CD, of harpsichord works by François and Armand-Louis Couperin (Centaur), as a “stylish, tasteful, and technically commanding performance…expressive and brilliant playing.” His recordings of music by Scarlatti and Hasse with Ars Lyrica, on the Naxos and Dorian-Sono Luminus labels, have earned a Grammy nomination and widespread critical acclaim. Dirst also serves as Associate Professor of Music at the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music and organist at St Philip Presbyterian Church in Houston. His degrees include a PhD in musicology from Stanford University and the prix de virtuosité in both organ and harpsichord from the Conservatoire National de Reuil-Malmaison, France, where he spent two years as a Fulbright scholar. His book Bach as Idea: the Posthumous Life of his Keyboard Works will be published by Cambridge University Press this fall.