Dr. Joan Thomson Kretschmer is Artistic Director and Founder of the Lyric Chamber Music Society whose Board of Artistic Advisors has included Daniel Barenboim, Judy Colins, Charles Strouse, and Zubin Mehta.  At The New School for Social Research, she created and hosted Musicians on Music, a series of interviews with world-renowned artists including Jean-Pierre Rampal, Marilyn Horne, Victor Borge, Birgit Nilsson,  Peter Schickele, André Watts, Robert Merrill, and others.

 

A grateful student of pianist Jascha Zayde, she has performed with cellist Andrey Tcheckmazov and numerous Principals from NY Philharmonic, including Joseph Robinson, Principal Oboe and Sheryl Staples, Principal Associate Concert Master. Joan has taught at Juilliard, SUNY Purchase, and the Met Opera Guild. At Yale, she directed an Oral History of Electronics in Music, interviews with significant innovators in 20th century musical life.  She was music critic for the NY Post and has written about music for The NY Times, Opera News, Stagebill, Keynote, The Greenwich Time and other publications. Her program notes have appeared at concerts at Mostly Mozart, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and elsewhere.

 

Joan is the author of YONA: Discoveries, Doorways, and Musical Superpower  in which Yona discovers her supernatural musical abilities that can transform human behavior. Yona Goes To The Magic Flute, a  sequel, is Yona's adventure to the Metropolitan Opera to learn about Mozart and test her powers. A Thanksgiving Tale is Joan's latest book. She has written Michelangela and Debuts, a book of short stories; all available on Amazon and elsewhere.

 

She is music consultant on SHERRI AND THE UNFAIRIES, the new fantastical musical comedy which premiered at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in April 2026 and was music consultant on the award-winning film "Le Refuge" by writer/director Elliot Thomson and for Vincent Van Gogh: A Portrait in Two Parts, one of the first videodiscs ever made.

 

In addition to writing scripts for radio and national broadcasts of The Richard Tucker Gala, she hosted Upbeat, her own classical music radio show.

 

Joan attended Smith College, graduated from Barnard, and received her M.A. and Ph.D. in musicology from Columbia University, where she was Clarence Barker Fellow. She is an active educator and gives piano lessons and music classes to all age groups in her studio near Lincoln Center. Please visit Joan's website at: www.JoanKretschmer.com.