Joseph Gascho

Harpsichordist and conductor Joseph Gascho has performed across the world, from Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Canter to Paris, Tokyo and Taipei. Recent performing highlights include performances with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and a solo recital and masterclass for the Japan Harpsichord Society. In 2020, he release a recording of harpsichord works by Dietrich Buxtehude.

At the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, he teaches harpsichord, basso continuo, chamber music, improvisation and ornamentation, and co-directs the Baroque Chamber Orchestra with violinist Aaron Berofsky. He was recently appointed Director of the Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments and has enjoyed recent collaborations with the Hatcher Graduate Library and the Biosciences Ideas Lab Project.

He has guest-conducted and performed concerti with Apollo’s Fire, and served as conductor with Opera Vivente, the Maryland Opera Studio and the Peabody Institute.  He recently conducted four all-Bach concerts for Apollo’s Fire, “leading with energy, authority and a conducting technique that inspired the musicians he led to perform at their highest level. Gascho’s interpretations of the cantatas found the heart of each piece from the outset, realizing fully the drama and emotion that, in lesser hands, can often be lost in their rigid format (The Cleveland Plain Dealer).”

Gascho is likewise distinguished as an accomplished recording producer. Many celebrated artists and ensembles have turned to Gascho to produce their recordings, including U-M colleagues Matthew Bengtson, Kola Owolabi, and Louise Toppin, as well as the ensembles Pomerium, the Folger Consort, Trio Pardessus, the 21st Century Consort, Ensemble Gaudior, Three Notch’d Road, pianist/composer Haskell Small, Cantate Chamber Singers and the Washington Master Chorale.

Since 2008, he has taught and mentored students at the Baroque Performance Institute at Oberlin College, where he teaches basso continuo, coaches chamber music and conducts the student orchestra. Gascho holds masters and doctoral degrees in harpsichord from the Peabody Conservatory and the University of Maryland, where he also studied orchestral conducting with James Ross.