Linda Kobler: Biography

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Meet the Instructor for
MUSIC APPRECIATION
Linda Kobler

Linda Kobler is an accomplished teacher in classroom, private, and web-based instruction. She served on the faculty of The Juilliard School for seven years, and is very active in many different areas of musical life today.
If you'd like to know a bit about her, you can take a tour of this gallery.

Seicento Cembalo/CD recording of LK Seicento Cembalo (Classic Masters) is distinguished for the extensive use of improvisation in early Italian music. A concert harpsichordist, Linda Kobler has made two CD recordings. She has toured in Europe, Canada and the United States as a recitalist, concerto soloist, and chamber musician.
Musical Heritage Society CD by Linda Kobler French Harpsichord Music of the 18th Century (Musical Heritage Society) includes the first-ever recording of music by Christophe Moyreau.

As a writer, Linda Kobler has contributed to print and web journals as well as reference books such as The Garland Encyclopedia of the Keyboard.

Linda Kobler is the author of liner notes for SONY Classical CDs, among them, The Great War, a recently released survey of music before, during, and after World War I. This CD is an excellent teaching resource, making historical points through the use of classical and popular musics. Ms. Kobler's notes for The Great War also formed the basis for a broadcast on National Public Radio, as part of the Milestones of the Millennium series of Performance Today, a collaborative project between NPR and SONY Classical.

Linda Kobler is a commentator for National Public Radio's program, Performance Today.

On June 23, 1999, Linda Kobler gave two workshops for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. These workshops were interdisciplinary studies, dealing with the integration of popular and rock music into the school curriculum.

A summary of Linda Kobler's accomplishments--

As a harpsichord soloist and chamber musician Linda Kobler has appeared across America and abroad. She has been called "a splendid harpsichordist" by the New York Times, and in Europe her playing has been described as "brilliant," "a musical treat," and "enrapturing." She has been a winner of the Concert Artists Guild Competition and the recipient of the Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society. The latter award is given to artists whose work blends scholarship with performance. Both of Ms. Kobler's CD recordings are particularly impressive demonstrations of this mixture. Her first CD, French Harpsichord Music of the 18th Century, for Musical Heritage Society, featured the works of Christophe Moyreau, never before recorded, and won her accolades from reviewers in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Her second CD, Seicento Cembalo, also received critical praise, and was notable for being the first recording to make extensive and bold use of improvisation in the works of 17th century Italian keyboard composers. Linda Kobler has also been active in the performance of contemporary harpsichord music, and a number of pieces have been written especially for her by composers such as Vincent Persichetti and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.

Ms. Kobler has been concerto soloist with such ensembles as the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony, the Bach Gesellschaft, and New York's "Y" Chamber Orchestra under Gerard Schwarz. A regular guest recitalist at the Indianapolis Early Music Festival, she has also been invited to give recitals at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Phillips Collection and the Smithsonian Institution. Educated at Peabody Conservatory, The Juilliard School and City University of New York, Linda Kobler pursued degrees in harpsichord, musicology and piano. She is the author of two articles in the Garland Encyclopedia of the Keyboard and has written reviews and articles for various journals. She is a regular commentator for National Public Radio's "Performance Today" and has written liner notes for Sony Classical. Linda Kobler served for seven years on the faculty of The Juilliard School in New York City, and also taught at The New School for Social Research in Manhattan. She is married to composer Albert Glinsky.