For the love of baroque and classical music (and sometimes jazz, too)
The curator behind biberfan
I’m John Hendron, a lifelong musician and devoted listener to classical music, with a particular affection for the baroque era. I’ve been sharing my musical interests online since 1997, and biberfan has evolved into a place where I write about recordings, performances, and the occasional musing that catches my attention.
I grew up in a household where music was always present. My mother played the organ, while my father favored Pink Floyd on the stereo. I gravitated toward the organ myself, and at five my parents bought me a piano and enrolled me in lessons. It wasn’t long before I discovered that I enjoyed making up my own music at least as much as playing someone else’s.
That interest eventually led to formal studies in music, composition, conducting, and music history. Although my professional career took me into education, leadership, and technology, music has remained a constant. Today, much of my listening centers on recordings of music composed between 1600 and 1800, although my interests extend well beyond those boundaries.
noticing the ongoing theme here of hot pants?
Why biberfan?
The name dates to 1995, when I needed a second UNIX account at the University of Rochester. A few years earlier, I’d discovered the extraordinary music of Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber through recordings and figured his name was obscure enough to make a clever online identity. The name stuck.
I launched biberfan.com in 1997 as a personal website, with music among its subjects. Over time, music became its primary focus. In 2027, the site will celebrate its 30th anniversary, which is a rather long time to be writing about something simply because you enjoy it.
Outside of music, my interests include web design, graphic design, technology, and cooking. I’m also something of an Apple enthusiast. A visit to the link below will help certify that statement.
A Life in Music
My musical education began with piano and eventually expanded to trombone, composition, and conducting. I studied piano and trombone with John Silvers in Pittsburgh, and later attended Avon Lake High School in Ohio, where I played under Harry Pfingsten, whose career inspired elements of Tom Batiuk’s Funky Winkerbean comic strip.
During high school, I joined the Cleveland Youth Wind Symphony as a trombonist under Gary Ciepluch. That experience introduced me to ambitious wind ensemble repertoire and helped shape my interest in conducting and composition.
I went on to study at the University of Rochester and the Eastman School of Music. There, my interests gradually shifted away from performing on the trombone and toward writing music, studying its history, and understanding how it works. Among my teachers were Augusta Read Thomas in orchestration, Alfred Mann in Bach, Massimo Ossi in music history, Daniel Harrison in theory, Donald Hunsberger in wind conducting, and David Effron in orchestral conducting.
For graduate school, I returned to Cleveland, earning a master’s degree in music education from Case Western Reserve University. I continued studying conducting with Gary Ciepluch and musicology with John Seuss, while composing and performing with university ensembles.
University of Rochester Wilson Commons 1996
Although the trombone and wind ensemble repertoire occupied much of my formal musical life, baroque music was always my first love. That fascination continues to inform how I listen, what I collect, and what I choose to write about.
More about my musical background
Composition and performance
At Rochester, I was a founding member of the Stingers trombone choir and wrote and arranged a considerable amount of music for trombone ensembles. My wind ensemble composition Entrance, Passage, and Fugue received its premiere with the University of Rochester Symphonic Winds.
During graduate school, I continued composing and had several works premiered, including keenésa for wind ensemble, performed at Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music. I also performed with wind ensembles at Case Western Reserve and the Cleveland Institute of Music.
Music and the Macintosh
In 1988, I began learning Finale on a Macintosh Plus, which sparked an enduring interest in music notation software, MIDI, and the intersection of music and technology. I was reportedly the second purchaser of Finale in Ohio, following Oberlin Conservatory.
That early experience with computers eventually developed into a broader interest in digital media, web design, and the ways technology changes how we create, distribute, and experience music.
A few musical influences
My formal studies exposed me to a broad range of musical traditions, but the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries has remained especially compelling. I’m fascinated by the relationship between historical performance practices, modern interpretation, and the extraordinary variety of ways musicians can bring familiar scores to life.
How I Listen
Years ago, I recognized the value of recording reviews, often with a copy of Gramophone or Early Music in my lap. Reviews can introduce us to unfamiliar repertoire, help us discover remarkable musicians, and provide context for understanding what makes a performance distinctive.
They can also help sell recordings, of course. But I think their greater value lies in revealing something about the music and the people who perform it.
I tend to think of a recording as more than a musical performance. It’s a collaboration involving the composer, the musicians, the acoustic environment, and the people responsible for capturing and producing the sound. A wonderful performance can be diminished by an indifferent recording, just as exceptional engineering can reveal qualities in a performance that might otherwise go unnoticed.
For that reason, I approach reviewing a recording differently from writing about a live concert. I consider the musical interpretation, the quality of the performance, and the recorded sound, and I try to distinguish among them in my writing.
My interest in historically informed performance certainly influences my preferences. I appreciate musicians who engage seriously with the conventions and expressive possibilities of earlier music. But historical authenticity isn’t a guarantee of artistic success, nor is the use of modern instruments necessarily a disadvantage.
Ultimately, I’m just a guy with an opinion, informed by years of listening, studying, performing, and collecting recordings.
And that’s really the point.
The value of a review isn’t necessarily whether you agree with my conclusions. It’s whether you come to understand my tastes well enough to know when my recommendations might be useful to you. If you discover that we tend to like the same things, that’s helpful. If you discover that we consistently disagree, that might be just as useful.
My aim is to make those preferences apparent in every review.
What the Stars Mean
In 2024, I began assigning star ratings to recordings as a quick point of comparison for readers. The ratings reflect my overall impression of the music, performance, and sound rather than any single technical measurement.
★★★★★ — Exceptional
A desert-island recording. Everything comes together: compelling musicianship, exceptional sound, and a performance I can’t imagine wanting to be without. These are the recordings against which others may be compared.
★★★★ — Highly Recommended
An excellent recording that I would encourage others to hear or purchase. Technical accomplishment is matched by an engaging interpretation that makes a lasting impression.
★★★ — Good
A solid recording with worthwhile qualities. The playing is generally accomplished, and the sound is satisfactory, even if neither rises to exceptional heights. Most of the recordings in a serious collection probably belong somewhere around this level.
★★ — Reservations
A recording with some merit, but one I’m unlikely to revisit regularly. It may still be useful for comparing interpretations of the same repertoire.
★ — Not Recommended
A recording in which I find little to recommend. I hope never to have much occasion to use this rating.
A three-star recording isn’t necessarily a disappointment, and five stars aren’t awarded simply because I happen to like the repertoire. The ratings are an attempt to communicate how successfully the various elements of a recording come together.
Thanks for visiting, and happy listening. If you enjoy this site, Buy Me a Coffee!