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Historical Piano Concerts Series
About the Musicians

Monica Jakuc Leverett

Monica Jakuc Leverett, piano

Monica Jakuc Leverett is Elsie Irwin Sweeney Professor Emerita of Music at Smith College. She has given concerts on three continents, and is a frequent solo and chamber music performer in Western Massachusetts, playing on both early and modern pianos. She is often heard as a modern pianist in the Blaich/Leverett Duo, with tenor Peter W. Shea, and with The Chamber Music Society at Wistariahurst in Holyoke, Massachusetts. She has commissioned a number of works by living composers.

Ms. Jakuc Leverett also presents lecture-recitals on women composers and has been a featured artist at International Association of Women in Music concerts in London and Washington, D.C.

Inspired by Malcolm Bilson, Ms. Jakuc Leverett has performed on early pianos since 1986, the year of her debut on the present series. In 1990, she was an organizer and performer at the international HaydnFest co-sponsored by Smith and the Westfield Center for Early Keyboard Studies.  

A board member of Arcadia Players period instrument ensemble, she frequently performs with them on her two fortepianos by Paul McNulty: a  5 ½ octave Walter design (c.1803), and a 6½ octave copy of Graf’s Op. 318 (c. 1819). Ms. Jakuc Leverett's discography includes fortepiano sonatas by Marianne von Martinez, Marianna von Auenbrugger, and Joseph Haydn on Titanic Records, and Francesca LeBrun's complete Opus 1 Sonatas for fortepiano and violin, with Dana Maiben, on Dorian Discovery.  Her newest CD, “Fantasies for Fortepiano,” features works by Mozart, Haydn, C.P.E. Bach, and Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata.  It is available on cdbaby.com.

In July 2006, Monica Jakuc married Robert T. Leverett, an expert on old growth forests. Monica Jakuc Leverett retired from the Smith College faculty in June 2008, after 39 years of service. This is Ms. Jakuc Leverett’s eleventh appearance on the Historical Piano Concerts Series.

As the Blaich/Leverett Duo, Tanya Blaich and Monica Jakuc Leverett have been playing together since 2009. They have appeared in a number of Chamber Music at Wistariahurst concerts in Holyoke, MA and in other Massachusetts venues, now including ours.

For more information please visit www.monicajakucleverett.com .