Joan Benson is one of the foremost clavichordists of modern times. Projecting intense emotions through soft, subtle dynamics, she has been called "the terroriste of the pianissimo" by a Frankfurt critic.

Benson's worldwide concert career takes her from Lebanon to Hong Kong, from Haydn's Viennese home to the Smithsonian. Each location inspires her performance. In Bali, gamelan music enlivens her sense of rhythm. In New Zealand, hiking high mountains encourages her melodic expansiveness.

Through her highly praised concerts and recordings, Benson has awakened interest in music from 15th century tablatures to the 18th century free fantasies of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Applying her sensitive touch to the early and modern piano, she plays repertoire from Mozart through Fanny Mendelssohn to John Cage.

In the mid-1990s Benson left music to focus on Buddhist teachings. Inspired by her experiences, she now looks at music in a fresh, expansive way.

In current programs she alternates early clavichord pieces with her reading of Chinese poetry. She plays popular music from nineteenth century Sweden, the home of her ancestors. In Robert Kyr's festival, "Waging Peace in the New Millennium," Lou Harrison praised her delicate conception of his keyboard sonata. Recently she premiered Chris Chafe's "Tangent," a first for clavichord and computer-generated sound.

With "Tronika Time-Transit," she spins audiences through seven centuries of music. Rather than isolating art forms in time and space, Benson unites them, delighting her audiences.

"Imagination, fingers and sound are a continuum of musical experience. She does not seem so much to coax the sounds from the strings as to magically breathe life into the latent music."

The Evening Post, Wellington, New Zealand

"A SUPERB, SUBTLE RECITAL Miss Benson is a superb musician with an unusual sense of proportion, phrasing, and those tiny points of playing that make a true artist... Not only her playing, but her programming reveals a strong and vivid personality."

San Francisco Chronicle