About Charlotte Mattax Moersch

Charlotte Mattax Moersch, harpsichordist, noted for her “dashing, intelligent playing” (The Classical Times, London) has performed at major venues in the United States and Europe, including Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, and Salzburg’s Mozarteum. Called “a non-pareil harpsichordist” (Early Music America) and “world-class performer” (Fanfare), she has been heard in solo and chamber concerts at international music festivals, among them the Festival of the Associazione Musicale Romana and Tage alter Musik Regensburg. She was a top prizewinner in the prestigious Bruges and Paris International Harpsichord Competitions. Mattax Moersch’s discography includes Bach’s Goldberg Variations, sonatas by Bach’s sons W.F., C.P.E., and J.C.F., and the complete solo harpsichord works of D’Anglebert, Noblet, Février, and Armand-Louis Couperin. Her ongoing recording project, Vernissage, which includes over 100 solo harpsichord videos, can be viewed online. Her recent recording, Bach and the Lautenwerk, released by Centaur on Presto Music, feature arrangements for keyboard by Gustav Leonhardt of the solo violin sonatas and partitas of J.S. Bach.­ (https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/9726934) Publications include Denis Delair’s Traité of 1690, published by Indiana University Press, and an essay, “Énergie des modes: Tuning and temperament in seventeenth-century France,” published by Routledge. With Concerto Urbano, the period-instrument ensemble she founded in 1998, Mattax Moersch has presented fully staged operas, including Rameau’s Zéphyre and Cavalli’s La Calisto. Professor Emerita of Harpsichord and Early Music at the University of Illinois, she studied harpsichord at the Amsterdam and Paris Conservatories with Gustav Leonhardt and Kenneth Gilbert, and organ with André Isoir (Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris) and William Barnard (Christ Church, Houston). She has degrees from Yale University (B.A., cum laude), Juilliard (M.M.), and Stanford University (D.M.A. in Early Music).

URBANA BAROQUE, directed by Charlotte Mattax Moersch

3 pm, Sunday, November 9, 2025.

The Chapel of St. John the Divine, Champaign

Free Admission

“Pathos and Passion: French Baroque Chamber Music on Period Instruments.”

This concert, played by Urbana’s newest period instrument ensemble and directed by Illinois Professor Emerita Charlotte Mattax Moersch, celebrates chamber music of the French Baroque. From the haunting beauty of the Baroque flute and oboe in Couperin’s French suites, to the exuberant violins in Leclair’s Italian sonatas, this concert explores the rivalry between French and Italian musical styles in eighteenth-century France, and gives us a glimpse into French society in the time before the French revolution.

The Vernissage Project

The Vernissage Project, debuts on YouTube on Sunday, September 6, 2020. From a beautiful concert salon in the Beaux-Arts Memorial Hall at the University of Illinois, I offer impromptu videos of solo harpsichord works of Bach, Froberger, Couperin, Rameau, Duphly, and others. These videos were recorded over a few days during the pandemic shutdown. The link to the Playlist will be posted on her YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKjKJKSv3tTypbPFwm0jh6g/playlists