Paul Beier

American-born lutenist Paul Beier stands out as a pivotal force in developing a solo lute tradition within his adopted homeland of Italy. His involvement has included early-opera stagings at La Scala plus additional leading Italian houses, as well as appearances at the Santa Fe Opera in New Mexico. Born during 1954 in Salt Lake City, Utah, he pursued studies at London’s Royal College of Music under Diana Poulton, herself a trailblazer of British early-music revival and a former pupil of Arnold Dolmetsch. From this mentor he gained both technical mastery of the lute and a lasting commitment to investigating historically informed performance approaches. In 1981 he received an invitation to establish a dedicated lute curriculum at Milan’s Civica Scuola di Musica, where he has continued to teach, later incorporating classes in basso continuo and Renaissance ensemble playing. Beier helped launch the Italian Lute Society, serves as consulting editor for the Lute Society of America Journal, and has contributed numerous articles on lute interpretation. International solo engagements have taken him across Europe, the Americas, and Australia. His programs center on Baroque lute repertoire stretching from the early sixteenth century through works by Bach and Silvius Leopold Weiss. He established the Baroque ensemble Galatea and has worked with La Cetra along with other prominent period-instrument ensembles in Italy and abroad. He also developed Beiertab, software designed to assist in writing, revising, and converting lute tablature while generating standard notation and audio playback. A substantial catalog of solo recordings appears on the Stradivarius label, among them the 2019 release John Dowland: What if a day; additional projects have been issued by Opus 111, Glossa, Tactus, and further companies, while four discs document his direction of Galatea.