Acclaimed Canadian pianist Joel Harder is sought-after as collaborative partner, vocal coach, and pedagogue, having performed in Canada, the United States, England and continental Europe. Equally at home in performance of chamber music, song and operatic repertoire, Harder has performed at Alice Tully Hall, the Caramoor Centre for the Arts, Seiji Ozawa Hall, Bishopsgate Hall, the Beethoven Haus in Baden, Austria, and Carnegie Hall. Harder has worked with Maestros James Conlon, Christoph von Dohnanyi and Lorin Maazel, among others. He has been staff pianist and coach at the Cincinnati May Festival, the Castleton Festival, Festival Lyrique Internationale de Belle-Ile en mer, Highlands Opera Studio, and Los Angeles Opera. Currently he serves as senior vocal coach and pianist at the Chautauqua Opera Conservatory.

A passionate purveyor of Art Song, Harder has been a regular artist with the Brooklyn Art Song Society (BASS) for 8 years, where he has performed works ranging from Schubert song cycles to newly commissioned premieres. He has also been instrumental in creating staged and curated art song recitals as part of the re-imagined Castleton Festival, in partnership with tenor Dominic Armstrong, mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway, and program director Dietlinde Turban-Maazel.

Harder received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in collaborative piano from The Juilliard School, where he studied primarily with Margo Garrett and Jonathan Feldman. He wrote his dissertation on the songs of French composer André Caplet, for which he received a Presser Award for research at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. He was previously on faculty at Binghamton University (SUNY) as professor of collaborative piano, and is currently artistic faculty at the Manhattan School of Music, as well as co-head of opera and opera coach at the Mason Gross School for the Arts at Rutgers University. Harder manages a private coaching and teaching studio in Manhattan, where he lives with his wife and daughter.