BYRON SCHENKMAN (they/them) is a Queer Jewish keyboard player and scholar with a background in Historical Performance and a passion for connecting people through music. In addition to performing live on piano, harpsichord, and fortepiano, Byron can be heard on more than forty CDs, including recordings on historical instruments from the National Music Museum, Vermillion, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. They can also be heard in numerous online performances with Sound Salon.

A founding director of the Seattle Baroque Orchestra, Byron received the Erwin Bodky Award from the Cambridge Society for Early Music “for outstanding achievement in the field of early music” and they were voted “Best Classical Instrumentalist” by the readers of Seattle Weekly. Their piano playing has been described in The New York Times as “sparkling,” “elegant,” and “insightful.”

In recent seasons Byron has been a featured artist at the Boston Early Music Festival and the Vancouver Bach Festival, and they have premiered new works by Damien Geter, Caroline Shaw, and Jonathan Woody. Caroline Shaw’s Concerto for Harpsichord and Strings was dedicated to Byron. Their 2023 tour of Chile, including concerts and masterclasses in six cities, was sponsored by the Education and Culture program of the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. government and administered by Partners of the Americas.

Byron is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music and received a master’s degree with honors in performance from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music.