Conductor

Burton Karson   Conductor

Burton Karson founded the Baroque Music Festival in 1981 with the assistance of colleague and art historian Irmeli Desenberg, and has served continuously as the Festival’s Artistic Director and Conductor.

After a career as a boy soprano in Los Angeles, he studied piano with Paul Stoye and then musicology, keyboard performance and conducting at the University of Southern California, where he earned the degrees of Bachelor, Master and Doctor in Music. He studied Baroque music and harpsichord with Alice Ehlers, and conducting with Charles Hirt and Ingolf Dahl. After teaching positions at USC and Glendale College, he became Professor of Music at California State University, Fullerton in 1965, and now is Professor Emeritus there. A lifelong church musician, he was organist and choirmaster at Saint Michael & All Angels Episcopal Church from 1982 to 2000, now Emeritus.

Dr. Karson is well known as a pianist and organist, as a frequent lecturer for the Philharmonic Society of Orange County, the Long Beach Symphony Orchestra, the Carmel Bach
Festival and other musical organizations, and as an adjudicator for festivals and competitions. Editor of a Festschrift of musicological essays published by the BYU Press, Karson has had articles and reviews appearing in The Musical Quarterly, the Los Angeles Times, and other periodicals, and he provides the program notes for our Festival. Dr. Karson has twice been honored by California State University, Fullerton with awards in recognition of his contributions to the cultural life of our community and for academic research in Europe that has led to critically acclaimed first American performances of unknown and long-neglected Baroque music in Corona del Mar Festivals.