Kimball, Joan

Joan Kimball

Joan Kimball, a founding member of Piffaro and its artistic co-director for 40 years, has concertized with the ensemble throughout the U.S., Europe, and South America, and has performed with many of the leading early music artists and ensembles in this country.  With Piffaro she has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon Archiv Produktion, Dorian Recordings and PARMA/Navona. Widely known in the early music community as a teacher of recorder, early double reeds and bagpipes, she has a studio of young players and adults at home in Philadelphia, and is on faculty at early music festivals and workshops across the country, including The Madison Early Music Festival, The Indiana Early Double Reed Workshop, Amherst Early Music, The San Francisco Early Music Recorder Workshop, and Hidden Valley Early Music Workshop.

 In addition, she has collaborated with instrument maker Joel Robinson on the construction of Medieval and Renaissance bagpipes, and makes double reeds for shawms, dulcians and capped winds. One of her specialties is refurbishing sets of krumhorns, replacing old plastic reeds with more authentic cane ones. With Bob Wiemken, she received Early Music America’s 2021 Howard Mayer Brown Award for Lifetime Achievement in Early Music.