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B.S., M.S. Juilliard School of Music
 Monica Jakuc (pronounced Ya kutch) is the Elsie Irwin
Sweeney Professor of Music at Smith, where she has taught since 1969. Her performance
of J. S. Bach's "Goldberg" Variations at Merkin Hall was hailed by New
York Times music critic Tim Page as "an auspicious debut...one will observe
Miss Jakuc's career with more than usual interest."
A champion of contemporary music, Ms. Jakuc opened her
1988 London debut recital with the first performance of a work written especially
for her by Ronald Perera. New York audiences first heard her perform in 1980 at Alice
Tully Hall in "A
Program of Twentieth-Century Music for Two Pianos" with pianist Kenneth Fearn.
Other concert highlights include a series of recitals in Japan, many appearances
on the East and West Coasts, and a highly successful tour in Alaska.
In recent years,
she has featured the music of women composers on her programs, which have included
appearances at two national conferences: Feminist Theory and Music III in Riverside,
California, and “Women in Music: the Last 100 Years” in
Athens, Ohio. She has also been a featured artist at International Association of
Women in Music concerts in London and Washington. She has given lecture-recitals
on women composers at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and at colleges in the Northeast.
Inspired
by Malcolm Bilson, Monica Jakuc has also performed on early pianos since 1986. As
a frequently invited guest artist in a series of Historical Piano Concerts, she has
played instruments from the E.M. Frederick Collection in Ashburnham, Massachusetts.
She was both an organizer of, as well as a performing artist in, HaydnFest 1990,
an international conference of scholars and performers held at Smith College, and
co-sponsored by the Westfield Center for Early Keyboard Studies. She has also appeared
as guest soloist with Arcadia Players, and will debut her new 6 1/2 octave McNulty
fortepiano in their series this season playing Schubert’s “Winterreise” with
Peter W. Shea, tenor.
With noted early music violinist
Dana Maiben, she recorded Francesca LeBrun’s complete
Opus 1 Sonatas for Fortepiano and Violin on Dorian Discovery.
She has also played fortepiano sonatas by Marianne von Martinez,
Marianna von Auenbrugger, and Joseph Haydn on a Titanic Records
CD. Her new recording of “Fantasies for Fortepiano”
by Mozart, Haydn, C.P.E. Bach and Beethoven is now available
on cdbaby.com.
Born in Newark,
New Jersey, Monica Jakuc received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees from The
Juilliard School, where she studied with James Friskin and Beveridge Webster. She
later worked with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory and with Russell Sherman
in Boston. Konrad Wolff, renowned pianist, pedagogue and historian, was also one
of her mentors. |
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