Drawing on Cornell’s renowned collection of historical pianos, we will enjoy a richly varied program of panels, lectures, lecture-recitals, concerts, and more! All events take place in the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts.
Registration is required for all events except evening concerts, which are open to the public. For a list of these events, visit the Public Concerts page.
Tuesday, August 5
4-6pm | Registration
7:30-9:30pm | Evening Concert
Cellist David Hardy and fortepianist Lambert Orkis will play intimate works by Brahms and Schumann. They will be followed by Karim Sulayman (tenor) and Yi-heng Yang (fortepiano), who will perform an expressive set of Schubert Lieder.
Featured instruments: Joseph Simon, 1835, John Broadwood & Sons, 1865
Wednesday, August 6
8:30-11am | Panel | Approaching Historical Keyboards Through Chopin
Dylan Henderson — ‘Finding the Moonlight’: In Search of Chopin’s ‘Silver’ Sound
Cezary Karwowski — Rediscovering Chopin: A Refreshed Polish Perspective on Performance and Pedagogy Through Historical Pianos
Shin Hwang — Fryderyk Chopin according to Raoul Pugno
Myung-Jin Oh — The Cultivation of Touch and the Personified Voice of Chopin’s Pleyel of 1848, No. 14810
Robin Morace — Etudes by Hélène de Montgeroult (1764-1836) and Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831)
11:15-12:15pm | Lecture-recitals | Beethoven Arranged and Improvised
Luca Montebugnoli — Investigating and Reviving the Early Nineteenth-Century Practice of Piano Arrangement: Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony
Joyce Lindorff — Beethoven’s Powers of Improvisation and the “Eroica” Variations
1:15-2:15pm | Lectures
Federico Ercoli — Responsibility of and for an "action". The many lives of a Broadwood piano and the role of "its" artists between Dussek and Bilson
Rod Regier — Evolution of an Idiomatic Performance Technique
2:15-3:15pm | Lectures
Tom Strange — American History Reflected at the Keyboard: a survey of instruments in the Sigal Music Museum that framed America’s historical legacy
Anne Acker — Making the Music: A look at how piano design, construction, and materials co-evolved with composition and performance
3:30-5:00pm | Panel | Preserving a Legacy for Today and Tomorrow: Collections
Lectures and roundtable with Ken Walkup and Ken Eschete
5:00-6:00pm | Tea and Conversation
Informal sessions featuring lightning talks aimed at the general public, in which speakers present to a rotation of small audience groups for 10 minutes plus 5 minutes for discussion.
7:30-9:30pm | Evening Concert
Former students of Malcolm Bilson, including David Breitman, Petra Somlai, and Tuija Hakkila, will perform music by Schubert, Robert Schumann, and other composers.
Featured instruments: piano after Johann Schantz ca.1800
Thursday, August 7
9:00-10:45am | Lectures
Mark Kroll — How to Tune Your Piano, and Other Useful Instructions. Johann Nepomuk: Hummel’s Piano Method and Nineteenth-Century Performance Practice
Janet Pollack — Cramer/Byrd Manuscripts: A Matter of Restoration, Conservation or Profit?
Maria Rose — “A work unique in its genre…” Hélène de Montgeroult and piano pedagogy
11:00-11:40pm | Recital | Evolving Keyboard Soundscapes of the Galant Era
Anastasia Chin and Curtis Pavey, fortepiano and harpsichord
11:50-12:30pm | Recital | East and West Europe Meet at the Music Salon of the Razoumovsky Family
Liubov Titarenko, fortepiano
1:30-3:00pm | Lectures | Case Studies in Restoration and Conservation
Stephen Birkett — ‘Nourishment for the soul’ or ‘a feast for the ear’? A comparative study of Stein and Walter fortepiano actions
Bart Houtgraaf — 1792 Broadwood and 1830 Tischner
Michael Reiter — J B Streicher, one technician’s adventure into the world of early pianos
3:15-3:45pm | Recital | Songs and Contradances at Home: The Music Of Ignatius Sancho and Henri Capron
Jean Bernard Cerin (baritone), Patricia García Gil (fortepiano), Eve Miller (cello)
3:45-4:45pm | Recitals
Anthony Bonamici plays John Knowles Paine
Artis Wodehouse — Crossing Boundaries: 19th C. New Orleanian Composers Basile Barès (1845-1902) and Eugene Wythe Baylor (1833-1918) and a modern reimagining of Abraham Lincoln’s favorite song Listen to the Mockingbird
5:00-6:30pm | The Salon: An Incubator for Untold Stories of Keyboard Culture
Patricia García Gil, Rebecca Cypess, Yi-heng Yang
6:30-8:00pm | Reception
8:00-9:30pm | Lectures | Technicians’ hands-on maintenance session
Led by Ken Walkup.
Friday, August 8
9:00-10:00am | Lectures | Teaching Historical Keyboards as a Stimulus to Creative Performance
Audrey Axinn — Teaching Classical Ornamentation to Students
David Breitman — The Fortepiano as a Pedagogical Tool for (Modern) Piano Players
10:15-11:30am | Panel | Teaching Historical Keyboards as a Stimulus to Creative Performance
Panelists: Tuija Hakkila and David Szilasi, Petra Somlai and Aruth Masrangsan, Matthew Bengtson and Cezary Karwowski
1:00-2:00pm | Lecture-recitals
Anders Muskens — A prominent figure within the Mannheim School: Georg Joseph Vogler (1749-1814)
Anastasios-Achillefs Zafeiropoulos — “A hint of keyboard magic”: The “Effect” of Fingerings in Clementi’s Revisions of his op. 36 Progressive Sonatinas
2:00-2:30pm | Tea and Conversation
Informal sessions featuring lightning talks aimed at the general public, in which speakers present to a rotation of small audience groups for 10 minutes plus 5 minutes for discussion.
2:30-4:00pm | Panel | Understanding Beethoven’s Grande Fugue for Four Hands, Op. 134: Entangling Bodies, Strings, and Subjects
Panelists: Elaine Sisman, Robin Wallace, Tom Beghin
Other participants: Luca Montebugnoli, Anastasios Zafeiropoulos, Blake Proehl
4:15-5:30pm | Recital | Album Leaves and Dedications
Matthew Bengtson, Gabriel Merrill-Steskal, Roger Moseley
7:30-9:30pm | Evening Concert
Sylvia Berry and Ursula Dütschler will present a selection of music for fortepiano and harpsichord by Jean-François Tapray (1738-1822), Anne Louise Brillon de Jouy (1744-1824), and Armand-Louis Couperin (1727-1789), after which Duo CPE (consisting of Andréa Walker, soprano, and Mikhail Grazhdanov, fortepiano) will perform songs and arias by Haydn. Tom Beghin and Luca Montebugnoli will conclude proceedings with a rendition of Beethoven’s rarely-heard four-hand fortepiano arrangement of his Grande Fugue for string quartet.
Featured instruments: piano after Gottfried Silbermann, 1749, Joseph Simon, 1835, piano after Johann Schantz ca.1800
Saturday, August 9
9:30-10:00am | Recital
Anthony Bonamici and Baron Fenwick — Schubert Variations in A-flat Major for fortepiano four hands, D. 813 (1824)
10:00-11:00am | Lecture | Neal Zaslaw
Neal Zaslaw — Piano-forte pour la parfaite harmonie, or, how many notes are there in an octave? The Harmony – Fortepiano of Johann Jakob Könnicke, Vienna, 1796
11:15-12:00pm | Lecture | Pablo Gómez Ábalos
Pablo Gómez Ábalos — The Clavecin roïal and the Aesthetics of Timbres
1:30-2:30pm | Panel | Preserving a Legacy for Today and Tomorrow: International Zoom Panel
Kerstin Schwartz — The importance of organological research for restoration, conservation and building replicas.
Catalina Vicens — Curating Sound: Performance, Conservation, and Collection in Dialogue
2:30-3:00pm | Lecture-recital
Blake Proehl — CPE Bach, the Friederici clavichord, and the Classical clavichord idiom
3:15-4:00pm | Lecture | Malcolm Bilson
Malcolm Bilson on Interpreting Dotted Rhythms
4:00-4:30pm | Tea and Conversation
Informal sessions featuring lightning talks aimed at the general public, in which speakers present to a rotation of small audience groups for 10 minutes plus 5 minutes for discussion.
4:30-5:30pm | Mozart’s Pantomime: Commedia dell’ Arte and Improvisation
Lectures by Roger Moseley, Patricia García Gil, Robi Arce-Martinez.
Other participants: Federico Ercoli, Addi Liu, Eve Miller
7:30-9:30pm | Evening Concert
An evening of powerful and lyrical chamber works by Jane Mary Guest (c.1762-1836), Emilie Mayer (1812-1883), and Louise Farrenc (1804-1875), performed by Yi-heng Yang, Aisslinn Nosky, Gesa Kordes, Stephanie Vial, Heather Miller Lardin, and Andrew Willis.
Featured instruments: John Broadwood & Sons, 1799, Pleyel et Cie,1843
Sunday, August 10
10:00-11:00am | Lecture-recitals
Lin Lao — Rediscovering Franz Behr or is he Charles Godard or G. Bachmann…?
Charlotte Tang — To Pedal or not to Pedal? Examining the Synonymity of “Soft Pedals” and Quiet Dynamics in Schubert’s Piano Sonatas
11:15-1:00pm | Panel | The Future of Fortepiano Culture
Discussion with audience and professionals.