Biography Terence Charlston is a specialist performer on early keyboard instruments and widely acknowledged for his engaging and expressive performances. He has been described as one of Britain’s leading early keyboard players and his sympathetic command of original instruments has made him a frequent performer at collections of early keyboard instruments all over the world. Over the last 20 years in the profession, he has built an enviably broad career as a solo and chamber musician, choral and orchestral director, and teacher and academic researcher.

Terence Charlston was born in Blackpool, Lancashire. From an early age, he was drawn to the sound and repertoire of old instruments, especially the harpsichord, which he first experienced through recordings and BBC Radio 3 broadcasts. He studied piano and organ from childhood and later took degrees in Oxford and London in organ, harpsichord and musicology beginning his career in church music. As a harpsichord and organ soloist, he has toured extensively within Europe, as well as to Japan, the USA and South America giving courses and master classes in Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico and USA. 

He is well known to chamber music audiences and performs and records with most of today’s leading period singers, instrumentalists and ensembles. He was a member of the quartet London Baroque between 1995 and 2007 with whom he gave nearly 500 concerts worldwide and can be heard with Florilegium, London Handel Players and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and is a guest director of Lancashire Sinfonietta. His wide repertoire spans from the 16th century to the present day and reflects his passionate interest in keyboard music of all types and styles. He has recorded over 50 commercial CDs on harpsichord, organ, virginals, clavichord and fortepiano and he can be frequently heard on BBC Radio 3.

He has a wide interest in keyboard music of all periods and his harpsichord and organ recordings have been well received in the musical press. His recorded repertoire is particularly broad (over 50 commercial CDs on harpsichord, organ, virginals, clavichord and fortepiano) and can be heard on the Deux-Elles, Harmonia Mundi, Naxos, ASV, Channel Classics and BIS labels. Recent recordings include Baroque music on the Silbermann style organ belonging to the St. Albans International Organ Festival and a recital of Italian harpsichord music by Monza, Pasquini and Monari. For the National Trust he has recorded all the playable keyboard instruments of the Fenton House Collection in Hampstead, London. This season he gave solo organ concerts in Slovakia and toured North America with flautist Ashley Solomon where he gave concerts and master classes at Lawrence, Case Western and Yale Universities.

In addition to an international performing career, he is much in demand as a teacher. He taught academic studies, performance practice and harpsichord at the Royal Academy of Music, London where he founded the department of Historical Performance (1995) and now teaches basso continuo and clavichord. He also lectures for the London centre of Lawrence University, Wisconsin and has given master classes in Italy, Germany, Greece, USA and Mexico. He is also professor of harpsichord at the Royal College of Music, London and consultant for historical keyboard studies.

Terence is an important advocate of English and continental keyboard music and his fascination with this repertoire has resulted in a number of pioneering concerts and recording projects. These include editions and recordings of all Matthew Locke’s organ and harpsichord music, Carlo Ignazio Monza’s Pièces modernes pour le Clavecin, and a recording and interactive edition of the keyboard music of Albertus Bryne (Deux-Elles DXL 1024 and Norsk Musikforlag A/S.)  His recording of William Byrd’s My Ladye Nevell Booke will shortly be heard on the British Library’s Turning Pages website and he has just recorded the manuscript of Antoine Selosse.

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Double manual harpsichord after Ruckers 1624 by Andrew Garlick, 1998.

'Continuo playing is, then, basically very similar to the method practised by nature's musicians, the adaptation of an accompaniment to a given melody, as they feel it; the similarity being so great, one can regard continuo as simply a more complete version of these methods.' 
Arnold Schoenberg, Style and Idea, Berkeley, 1975, p.306.

'Purely objective artistic representation is however the hardest of all, and is accomplished and understood only by a few. The lack of the same gives rise so often to false pretension instead of modest understanding and pure joy through being completely lost in beautiful works of art.'
Friedrich Conrad Griepenkerl on performing J.S.Bach's Chromatic Fantasia.

'It's the kind of reflective music that those of us who want to peer into music and have a profound experience rather than an immediately thrilling one find so very exciting.'
Vernon Handley on Vaughan Williams' Symphony no.6

'All you need in life is ignorance and confidence, then success is assured.' Mark Twain, 1887.

'It is better to remain silent and be assumed a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.'
Mark Twain, Letter to Mr. Foote, 2 Dec., 1887.