Joel Harder

Acclaimed Canadian pianist Joel Harder is sought-after as collaborative partner, pedagogue, vocal coach and chamber musician, having performed in Canada, the United States, England and continental Europe. Equally at home in performance of chamber music, song and operatic repertoire, Mr. Harder has performed at Alice Tully Hall, the Caramoor Centre for the Arts, Seiji Ozawa Hall, Bishopsgate Hall, the Beethoven Haus in Baden, Austria, and Carnegie Hall. Mr. Harder has worked with Maestros James Conlon, Christoph von Dohnanyi and Lorin Maazel, among others. He has been staff pianist and coach at the Cincinnati May Festival, the Castleton Festival, Festival Lyrique Internationale de Belle-Ile en mer, Highlands Opera Studio, Chautauqua Opera Conservatory and Los Angeles Opera. He has given masterclasses on collaborative pianism at Binghamton University, the University of Alberta, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Cornell University, Vanderbilt University and Rutgers University. This Fall, Mr. Harder was featured as a pianist on Joyce DiDonato’s Masterclass Series at Carnegie Hall, filmed live on Medici TV. A passionate purveyor of Art Song, Mr. Harder has been a regular artist with the Brooklyn Art Song Society (BASS) for 7 years, where he has performed works ranging from Schubert song cycles to newly commissioned premieres. He has also been instrumental in creating staged and curated art song recitals as part of the re-imagined Castleton Festival, in partnership with tenor Dominic Armstrong, mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway, and program director Dietlinde Turban-Maazel. Mr. Harder received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in collaborative piano from The Juilliard School, where he studied chiefly with Margo Garrett and Jonathan Feldman. He wrote his dissertation on the songs of French composer André Caplet, for which he received a Presser Award for research at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. In 2015, Mr. Harder joined the faculty at SUNY Binghamton as Assistant Professor where he headed up a graduate program in Collaborative Piano. More recently, he joined the artistic faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, and manages a private coaching and teaching studio in Manhattan, where he lives with his wife and daughter.