Harpsichordist to the Internet

I began studying piano with my mother at age three on the Niagara Peninsula (Canada). I later studied violin with Artur Garami and keyboard with Eric Dowling. My childhood inspiration was a series of articles about Vladimir Horowitz in Etude Magazine.

By the age of sixteen I was an Associate of the Royal Conservatory of Toronto. I was introduced to the harpsichord and Fenton House by Thurston Dart in London England, to gamba making by Juliet Beamont of Cambridge, and to the baroque violin by Alice Harnoncourt.

For a variety of reasons, I took time out from a music career to raise five wonderful children: a minister, a teacher, a scientist, a guitar maker and a writer. When they were grown up, I cashed in my pension and returned to my music.

Originally, I planned to record all copyright-free works for the harpsichord in General MIDI format for free distribution on the Internet. If you enjoy the trip, who cares if you get there! But, something happened on the way - the trip got nasty.

I play for myself now.

I thank the many Internet sites that carry my recordings. The main ones are:
Midiworld: Allows unrestricted free downloading of individual files. Indexes Scarlatti by Longo numbers as well as Kirkpatrick.
The Classical Music Archive: Has restrictions on the number of files that can be downloaded.
Kunst der Fuge: Has restrictions on the number of files that can be downloaded.
Utrecht University FTP Server: The first site to carry my recordings. Over two decades old, but still working.
Dave's J.S.Bach Page: Bach only, of course. Dave was one of my earliest music supporters on the Internet.

I keep on my site zipped files containing all my recordings by composer: Bach, Byrd and Scarlatti.

The Werner Icking Music Archive carries my Scarlatti scores converted to PDF. Here they are in my original PostScript.

Michael Hart has converted my MIDI format to MP3 format using the sound font I made with my harpsichord: Bach, Byrd and Scarlatti.
 

John Sankey

Historic and Cultural Heritage Bronze Award
Classical Archives Recognized Contributor
Informative Music Site Award
 

aged 3, 16, and while I was doing the Bach recordings