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The American harpsichordist and music pedagogue, Mark Kroll, obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1968, and graduated in musicology in 1968-1969 from the Brooklyn College, City University of New York. He obtained his Master of Music degree in harpsichord from the Yale University School of Music in 1971. Among his teachers was Ralph Kirkpatrick.
Mark Kroll made his debut at Carnegie Hall, New York City, New York in 1975. He has performed in solo recitals, chamber music ensembles and as concerto soloist throughout Europe, South America, USA and Canada. His concert tours have included appearances as the official guest of the city of Barcelona, as featured soloist in Germany's Regensburg Early Music Festival, France's Festival Ambronay, Lisbon's Gulbenkian Foundation, Cracas’ Centro Venezolano Americano (Venezuela), Rome's Conservatorio St. Caecilia and Associazione Musicale Romana, Poland's Dni Bachowski, Slovenijas's Radovljica Festival and, in the USA, the Aston Magna Festival, Tanglewood Festival, Marlboro Festival, Saratoga Festival, Northwest Bach Festival, Baldwin-Wallace College Bach Festival, Mostly Mozart Festival, Smithsonian Institute in Washington, Universities of California and Yale; Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among many others. He has been the first American harpsichordist to appear in numerous countries, including Abu Dhabi and Dubai of the United Arab Emirates. His recent tours to Israel included concerts, lectures and master-classes in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Kroll has appeared as concerto soloist with some of the world's major orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Belgrade Chamber Orchestra and I Solisti di Zagreb.
Mark Kroll's extensive list of recordings includes solo harpsichord works of J.S. Bach, George Frideric Handel, D. Scarlatti, François Couperin, Duphly and Balbastre; the complete sonatas for violin and harpsichord and for flute and harpsichord of J.S. Bach; G.F. Handel: complete works for recorder and harpsichord; sonatas for violin and harpsichord of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and S. LeDuc; Schubert's three Sonatinas for fortepiano and violin; a world-premiere recording of Mozart's "Haffner" and "Linz" symphonies as transcribed by J.N. Hummel for fortepiano and instruments; Biber's Sonatas for Violin and Harpsichord; and two CD’s of contemporary American harpsichord music; Antonio Vivaldi's The Seasons with Boston Symphony Orchestra; Monteverdi, madrigals; Harpsichord works of JNP Royer. He has made numerous radio and TV appearances, including Radio Nacional Espaqa, Radio Yugoslavia, Radio Catalunya, National Public Radio (Washington), Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln, Mitteldeutscherrundfunk, Bayerische Rundfunk, France Musique, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Radio Smithsonian; Numerous TV shows for Public Broadcasting System and BBC.
A dedicated educator, in 1989 Mark Kroll served as Fulbright Professor and Artist-in-Residence in Yugoslavia, and later returned for recitals in Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade and Zadar. In 1991 he was a visiting lecturer at the University of Padua, Italy and in 1993 he served as Professor at the Conservatory of Music in Würzburg, Germany. He has conducted numerous master-classes, including 3-day courses at the Academies of Music in Warsaw and Krackow, Poland; the School of Music of Ljubljana, Slovenija; and the Athens Conservatory in Greece. Currently he is Professor Emeritus at Boston University, where he served for twenty-five years as Chair and founder of the Department of Historical Performance; Conductor, Orchestral works of Rameau, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, A. Vivaldi, etc; Artist in residence, Lafayette College. He served as a member and the President of the jury of the Prague International Harpsichord Competition and is currently a member of the music panel of the Pro Musicis Foundation.
Mark Kroll has published the books Bach, Handel and Scarlatti: Reception in Britain 1750-1850 (Cambridge University Press); The Cambridge Companion to the Harpschord (Cambridge University Press); Ignaz Moscheles and the Changing World of Musical Europe (Boydell And Brewer Press); The Boston School of Harpsichord Building (Pendragon Press); Johann Nepomuk Hummel: A Complete Theoretical and Practical Course of Instructions on the Art of Playing the Piano Forte, Facsimile of Part III (Pendragon Press); Johann Nepomuk Hummel: A Musician's Life and World (Scarecrow Press), Playing the Harpsichord Expressively: A Practical and Historical Guide (Scarecrow Press) and The Beethoven Violin Sonatas (co-edited with Lewis Lockwood for the University of Illinois Press), an edition Of Geminani's Violin Sonatas, Op. 4 and Concertos, Op. 4 for the Opera Ominia of the composer’s works (UT Orpheus), two editions of J.N. Hummel's transcriptions of opera overtures and W.A. Mozart's symphonies, an edition of concerti grossi by Francesco Scarlatti and an edition of concerto arrangements of Geminiani's violin sonatas, op. 1 by Charles Avison (A-R Editions), a chapter on Hummel's piano method (University of Rochester Press), and articles for Music and Letters, Notes, Early Music America Magazine and other journals. He has also served as the music critic for WBUR-FM/Boston, and is currently book review editor of Early Music American Magazine.
Kroll has received an impressive number of awards and honors. These include a Senior Fulbright Award from the Council for International Exchange of Scholars, a Solo Recitalist Grant from the NEA, an NEH Fellowship, Whiting and Bogliasco Fellowships, a Weimar Stipendium, two grants from the DAAD, two grants from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, and grants from IREX, Arts International and the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund.
Mark Kroll married the violinist Carol Lieberman on July 9, 1975. They have a son, Ethan Kroll, and two grandchildren. |
