• News

    New Video: José de Nebra’s Sinfonía in D Major. Possibly the first time this remarkable music has been recorded! And introducing my new spinet from Atelier Marc Ducornet

  • BioGraphy

     

     Well known in the New York area, Rebecca Pechefsky has performed in such venues as Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, Merkin Hall, and the Morris-Jumel Mansion, where she and Brooklyn Baroque have performed in a yearly series. She has also been heard in the concert series of the Miami Bach Society, the Iowa Early Keyboard Society, Capriccio Baroque, and the Harpsichord Center in California, as well as in fringe concerts of the Boston Early Music Festival and the Berkeley Festival. Recent European engagements include recitals in Tallinn (Estonian Harpsichord Festival), London (Handel House), Milan (Sforza Castle), Bologna, Genoa, Amsterdam, Berlin, Basel, and Paris (Les Concerts dans les Copeaux). Among her recordings for Quill Classics are the complete harpsichord music of François d’Agincour; Bach and His Circle (JPF Music Award, Best Classical Solo Album); Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1, praised in Fanfare as “excellent to the highest degree”; and Johann Ludwig Krebs @ 300. As part of the Krebs 300th birthday celebrations in Germany, she was invited to perform in Zwickau and Altenburg in October 2013, and in November 2018 she participated in a marathon celebrating Couperin’s 350th birthday at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. Also committed to contemporary music, she has premiered works by Beth Anderson, Mary Inwood, Mark Janello, Graham Lynch, Frank J. Oteri, Louis Pelosi, Johnny Reinhard, David Wechsler, and Ben Yarmolinsky, and can be heard along with Elaine Funaro and Beverly Biggs on Uno, Due, Tre: New Works for Harpsichord by Mark Janello and Edwin McLean. Currently organist at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Glendale, Queens, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Erik Ryding, with whom she coauthored the award-winning biography Bruno Walter: A World Elsewhere. Rebecca graduated as a piano major from Juilliard’s Pre-College program before earning her undergraduate degree at Barnard College, followed by an MA in harpsichord from Queens College and an MPhil in musicology from the CUNY Graduate Center. Her piano teachers included Mary Turner, Dimitri Toufexis, and Seymour Lipkin; she later studied harpsichord with Louis Bagger, Kenneth Cooper, and Raymond Erickson, with master classes from Olivier Beaumont, Kenneth Gilbert, and Colin Tilney. Her recording of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, appeared in November 2017. She is a founding member of Ensemble Luini, an ensemble dedicated to Renaissance music and featuring lute, recorder, and virginals, as a well as a member of fhe Baroque Virtuosity trio with violinist Kinga Augustyn and lutenist Christopher Morrongiello and the harpsichordist for Opera Essentia.

  • Upcoming concerts

    Fall 2024

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    Opera Essentia

    September 14, 3 PM, Queens Central Library

    September 15, 3 PM, Campos Community Garden

    September 21, 3 PM, Calvary Hospital

    September 22, 12 PM, Bedford Central Church

    Opera Essentia presents: From Hell to Antigone, a one-act distillation of Handel's Admeto. Starring Jeffrey Mandelbaum, countertenor and artistic director; Nicole Besa, soprano; Kristin Renee Young, soprano; Katherine Lerner Lee; Hans Tashjian, bass. For more information: operaessentia.org

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    GEMS Midtown Concerts

    Thursday, October 24 at 1:15 PM, St. Malachy's Church

    Melanie Williams & Rebecca Pechefsky will present "Bach's Star Pupil Meets a Bohemian Virtuoso" with music for flute and harpsichord by Johann Ludwig Krebs and Georg Benda. In-person or live-streamed: Midtown Concerts

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    Brooklyn Baroque at the Old Stone House

    Friday, December 6 at 7 PM, Old Stone House of Brooklyn

    Join flutist Melanie Williams, harpsichordist Rebecca Pechefsky, cellist Serafim Smigelskiy, and special guest soprano Kristin Renee Young for a concert of festive and seasonal music by Bach, Vivaldi, and others.

    A reception will follow the concert!

    To purchase tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/brooklyn-baroque-at-the-old-stone-house-tickets-973183156017?aff=oddtdtcreator

  • Brooklyn Baroque

    Brooklyn Baroque debuted in the fall of 2000, when cellist David Bakamjian joined the long-standing duo of Baroque flutist Andrew Bolotowsky and harpsichordist Rebecca Pechefsky. Remaining core members Pechefsky and Bakamjian were recently joined by flutist Melanie Williams. Some artists the ensemble has worked with are sopranos Linda Lee Jones and Marguerite Krull, countertenor Jeffrey Mandelbaum, tenor Philip Anderson, bass-baritones Jonathan Woody and Michael Maliakel, recorder players Martin Bernstein and Gregory Bynum, violinists Jeremy Rhizor, Theresa Salomon, and Jude Ziliak, flutist Taya König-Tarasevich, oboist Sarah Davol, and the New York Classical Quartet. The ensemble was in residence for many years at the 1765 Morris-Jumel Mansion, Manhattan’s oldest house, and now performs at the Old Stone House in Brooklyn.

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    Brooklyn Baroque Begins a New Series at the Old Stone House in Brooklyn!

    The Great Room at the Old Stone House was filled to capacity for Brooklyn Baroque's debut concert at this historic venue. For this concert, flutist Melanie Williams and harpsichordist Rebecca Pechefsky were joined by cellist Andrew Koutroubas and countertenor Jeffrey Mandelbaum. The audience enjoyed both the music and prosecco at the reception afterwards!

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    Introducing Brooklyn Baroque’s New Flutist Melanie Williams!

    Flutist Melanie Williams fell in love with the one-keyed baroque flute as a sophomore at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and followed early music to New York City. Recent performances include appearances with Upper Valley Baroque as the soloist in Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B Minor, the Clarion Society at Temple Emanu-El, and with New York Baroque Incorporated as the soloist in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 at BAM. A student of Sandra Miller, Melanie received her doctorate from The Juilliard School in 2020. Education is a large part of her mission to engage audiences with classical music and mentor the musicians of tomorrow. She enjoys teaching children and adults and is on faculty at The Juilliard School in the Pre-College and Extension Divisions where she teaches courses in music theory, and at Musart Music in Long Island as flute faculty. In her free time, she enjoys running and composing.

    Tribute to Violinist Judson Griffin

    In this Telemann Quartet from a performance at Good Shepherd Catholic Church, Brooklyn, NY (the last joint concert with Brooklyn Baroque and the New York Classical Quartet) shows the magnificent artistry of the late Judson Griffin. 

     

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    Brooklyn Baroque’s Cellist David Bakamjian

    Cellist David Bakamjian performs regularly as a recitalist, chamber player, and recording artist. He has played at New York’s premier concert halls, including Carnegie Hall, and has appeared on National Public Radio and WQXR. On baroque cello, he performs with a number of period instrument ensembles in the New York area, including the American Classical Orchestra, Early Music New York, Concert Royal, and the Long Island Baroque Ensemble. Mr. Bakamjian has appeared as soloist with numerous orchestras on both baroque and modern cello, and has served as principal cellist for many others.

     

  • Videos

    Here are some recent videos; for a complete listing visit the Quill Classics channel on Youtube.

    François Couperin’s Huitième Ordre

    Couperin’s 8th Suite is considered by many to be his finest suite for solo harpsichord. I recorded this video using the superb acoustics at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Marine Park, Brooklyn. Special thanks to music director Michael Fontana, as always, for making these recordings possible!

    Premiere Recording of Antonio Soler’s Epic Fugue

    For  other Soler sonatas, including some also newly recorded from the Morgan Library & Museum recently acquired manuscript, to the Quill Classics Soler Playlist:

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkWklUUqkWK4MmpDjMDXOyZUXvrHthYqS

    Mark Janello’s Concerto for Two

    With my frequent duet partner and good friend Elaine Funaro for a video of Mark Janello’s sparkling duo, Concerto For Two, which we premiered in Montreal in 2015. Elaine commissioned the work for the Aliénor Harpsichord Composition Competition.

    Bach’s Partita No. 5

    We recorded Bach’s 5th Partita back in December 2010, but here it is, re-released with hitherto unseen movements. This was recorded at my own Redeemer Glendale Church.

    Krebs’s Italian Concerto

    Johann Ludwig Krebs’s sparkling concerto in the Italian style, reminiscent of Bach’s Italian Concerto but with Krebs’s own distinctive touches. My video recording might be the first complete recorded performance on harpsichord.

    For more Krebs recordings, go to the Quill Classics Krebs Playlist:

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkWklUUqkWK538IecZ4QCmfrGFPimqgDb

    Thomas Morley's Fantasia

    Morley's magnificent Fantasia, recorded on my Flemish muselar after Ruckers, built by Garrick Dolberg. Other recordings of Elizabethan keyboard music can be found on the Quill Classics Elizabethan Keyboard Music Playlist:

    https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkWklUUqkWK6iTXSC22BJIdQPModv3wjy

  • Two Centuries of Harpsichord Music

    Want to find out more about the history of the harpsichord and its music? Here's a video I made during the Covid-19 shutdown for Arts Farmington, Maine, featuring five different instruments and music by Bach, Couperin, Soler, Byrd, Frescobaldi, and others. I also offer remarks about each different instrument and musical style, from the 16th to the 18th Centuries.

  • Contact

    Send me a message to find out more about upcoming concerts and recordings!