Carey Beebe

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Carey Beebe

Carey Beebe, born in Melbourne in 1960, is an Australian harpsichord maker.

After graduating from the Sydney Conservatorium with a music degree as a harpsichord major and three performance diplomas including a Fellowship of Trinity College London, he became more interested in harpsichord construction and trained at the prominent American workshop of D. Jacques Way. In 1982 he was made the youngest ever International Agent for Zuckermann Harpsichords Inc., the company originally founded by Wolfgang Zuckermann, the inventor of the harpsichord kit. Since 1999 has been working exclusively with the French harpsichord maker Marc Ducornet and The Paris Workshop.

Beebe has scrutinized original instruments in museums and private collections, and maintained or prepared instruments for concerts, broadcasts or recordings on five continents. For over two decades, he has worked closely and regularly with some of the greatest musicians of the present day, often in some of the world’s most famous performance venues like the Sydney Opera House. His instruments and services have been used by performers such as William Christie & Les Arts Florissants, Richard Egarr, Richard Hickox, Christopher Hogwood, Igor Kipnis, Ton Koopman, Trevor Pinnock, Christophe Rousset & Les Talens Lyriques, and Colin Tilney.

In addition to his skills as a maker with over fifty instruments bearing his name, Beebe has gained considerable expertise in the problems of maintaining early keyboard instruments under adverse conditions such as the tropics. One of his instruments was transported to Thursday Island in the Torres Strait to portray Summer from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons for the documentary feature film 4, due for release in 2007.

Beebe’s major clients include Opera Australia, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Since 1999, he has been the resident early keyboard technician for each year’s Carmel Bach Festival in California where the Music Director is Bruno Weil and the Leader the Australian violinist Elizabeth Wallfisch.

[edit] Sources

Atherton, M. (1990), Australian Made… Australian Played… — Handcrafted musical instruments from didjeridu to synthesiser, Sydney: NSWU Press Macoboy, S. (1993), Macoboy’s Roses, Melbourne: Mallon