50 | DECEMBER 12 • 2024 
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ARTS&LIFE
MUSIC

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effrey Grossman combines 
fascination with music and 
instruments of the past with 
attention to emerging technology 
developments toward the future. He 
plays the harpsichord and uses new 
equipment modes in planning pro-
grams. 
His approach, as part of the 
four-member group the Sebastians, 
enters into the lively Dec. 15 con-
cert for Chamber Music Detroit. 
The program also will be available 
through digital viewing opportuni-
ties. 
Grossman’s instrument, the harp-
sichord, will take the stage with 
modern instruments played by the 
rest of the Sebastians for a “Holiday 
Baroque Matinee.” Also featured 
will be the violins of Daniel Lee and 
Nicholas DiEugenio as well as the 

cello of Ezra Seltzer. 
The four specialize in Baroque 
(1600-1750) music that has been 
popular in Western Europe without 
any reference to a specific holiday.
“When we were designing this 
program, we were trying to come 
up with something that would have 
the spirit of the holidays but not 
written for this specific time of the 
year,” said Grossman, who grew up 
in Michigan and had his bar mitz-
vah at Temple Shir Shalom in West 
Bloomfield.
“It’s happy music from a time 
when you can imagine people getting 
together and listening in community 
while enjoying themselves. There’s 
no actual Christmas or Chanukah 
holiday spin. There are pieces in 
minor keys, but the overall emotion 
is energy. It’s a program designed to 

leave you smiling at the end.”
There will be one modern piece 
in the program written by Karl 
Hinze, Grossman’s husband, who 
does administrative work for the 
Sebastians. The Baroque works 
include compositions by Johann 
Sebastian Bach (source of the group’s 
name), George Frideric Handel, 
Arcangelo Corelli, Jean-Pierre 
Guignon, Élisabeth Jacquet de La 
Guerre, Francois Couperin, Joseph-
Nicolas-Pancrace Royer and Antonio 
Vivaldi.
Grossman, who started musi-
cianship as a pianist studying at the 
University of Michigan while he 
was also a student at the now-dis-
continued Harrison High School in 
Farmington Hills, became entranced 
with the harpsichord as an advanced 
student.
“It was in college that I became 
fascinated by the harpsichord,” said 
the instrumentalist, who has three 
harpsichords in his New York living 
room and moves them around the 
room as he rotates practice on each. 

 “It’s all so different. When I was 
in graduate school for conducting 
at Carnegie Mellon University in 
Pittsburgh, I started sneaking away 
to take harpsichord lessons. It just 
seemed like fun.”
Playing the harpsichord went 
beyond fun as Grossman opened up 
to the characteristics of the instru-
ment. The ones he has come from 
France, Germany and Italy, and it 
becomes quite a production to move 
them around for performances.
“I love the way the harpsichord 
speaks,” he said. “The harpsichord 
has a kind of directness to it that I 
think is really special. It can be very 
beautiful, but also it can chatter in a 
way that the piano really doesn’t. It 
can create a rhythmic vitality. It’s fun 
to listen to and can spice up music 
in a way.”
The Sebastians were last in 
Michigan in 2018, when they played 
two concerts for the Academy of 
Early Music. Grossman gets back 
to Michigan in summers to visit his 
mom and stepdad, Beth and Jeff 

Chamber Music Detroit’s Dec. 15 concert 
features Jeffrey Grossman on harpsichord.

’A Holiday 
Baroque Matinee‘

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The Sebastians: 
Jeffrey Grossman 
on harpsichord; 
Daniel Lee 
and Nicholas 
DiEugenio on 
violins; and Ezra 
Seltzer on cello.