Rainer Beckmann, the director of the new Early Music Program at the Pennsylvania Academy of Music, is a graduate of the Utrecht School of the Arts, Netherlands, where he studied recorder with Heiko ter Schegget, Baldrick Deerenberg, and Marion Verbruggen. Mr. Beckmann is a first-prize winner at the Holland Open Recorder Festival Competition and the Performance Contest of the Dutch Concert Agency. As a founding member of Il Flauto Giocoso and the Landini Consort, he has performed in Germany, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Italy, and Israel. In Brazil, he has taught recorder and music history at the State University of Ceará and collaborated with the ensembles Ad Libitum and Syntagma that specialize in early music, as well as Brazilian popular and traditional music. Recent engagements include performances and recordings with Ensemble La Bernardinia, the Ridotto Ensemble, Tempesta di Mare, the New Amsterdam Recorder Trio, Early Music New York, and Fuma Sacra. Mr. Beckmann is the director of the Greater Philadelphia Area Recorder Academy. At the Pennsylvania Academy of Music, he will be developing the school’s first recorder class as well as providing opportunities for students to learn more about historical performance practice.