The Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards (CCHK) announces the return of the Chamber Music Collective summer festival (CMC) and Fortepiano Tech Academy. This collaboration combines CMC’s international experts in the history and performance of eighteenth- and nineteenth- century music with the CCHK collection’s representative instruments.
The week will include a series of concerts featuring distinguished performing artists and teachers, along with rising stars exploring the theme of “recreation” – a concept that embraces renewal, transformation, and the collaborative spirit of musical performance.
CMC’s faculty and students bring this theme to life through programs that foreground rediscovery and transformation. Works by Adela Maddison, Amy Beach, Agnes Zimmermann, and Ethel Barns recover rarely heard voices of the nineteenth century, while music by Fauré, the Mendelssohns, and the Schumanns explores the lyric and intimate dimensions of Romantic chamber culture.
The festival also highlights acts of musical recreation in a more literal sense. Mozart’s Piano Sonata in C Minor, K. 457, reimagined through Edvard Grieg’s later addition of a second piano part, becomes a dialogue across time as it is performed on contrasting historical keyboards. Similarly, Brahms’ String Sextet in G Major, presented in a piano trio arrangement, reflects the tradition of adaptation that lies at the heart of chamber music.
Contemporary creativity enters the program through a new four-hand work by Roger Moseley, while vocal repertoire—from Bach’s cantata In allen meinen Taten to songs by Schubert, Schumann, Hahn, and Charpentier—traces how text and music are continually reshaped in performance.
At the heart of CMC is a collaborative ethos: emerging artists perform alongside faculty in works including Beethoven’s reimagined chamber pieces, Clara Schumann’s Piano Trio, and Mozart’s violin sonatas, while participating in a shared presentation of Bach’s cantata that distributes instrumental roles across the ensemble.
Young artists were selected from a competitive application process to participate in an immersion experience with the Cornell keyboards, one of the world’s most significant collections of performance-ready historical pianos. The musicians include pianists, string players and vocalists and hail from locations as far flung as Japan and Vietnam and from schools including Bard, the University of Michigan, the University of Colorado, and more, as well as Cornell and Ithaca College. Working closely with faculty members Sezi Seskir (Bucknell, keyboards), Roger Moseley (Cornell, keyboards), Patricia Garcia Gil (Cornell, keyboards), Jean Bernard Cerin (Cornell, voice), Keiran Campbell (Tafelmusik, cello), Lucy Russell (Royal College of Music, violin), Mark Ferraguto (Penn State, improvisation), and Timothy Pyper (Williams College, Alexander Technique), the participants will explore the world of chamber music using historical technologies and techniques.
CMC is a laboratory for musical inquiry where historical instruments, improvisation, and close collaboration invite performers and audiences alike to experience music as something living, flexible, and endlessly remade.
The full schedule of recital information follows below. Events are free and open to the public.
In addition to the performance academy, the CCHK will also host an intensive two-day academy for piano technicians to learn specialized skills for working with historical instruments. Led by restorer-technicians Ken Eschete and Ken Walkup and joined by renowned fortepiano builder Rod Reiger, participants will learn conservation principles, restoration, period action regulation, and more. Eschete is a Professional Associate in the American Institute for Conservation and has worked with the Smithsonian and Colonial Williamsburg. Walkup retired as Cornell’s piano technician and continues to offer his expertise to maintain the Center’s unique historical instruments. Reiger is one of the world’s foremost makers of keyboard instruments based on historical examples.
Tuesday, June 23, 7:30 p.m., Lincoln Hall B20
Chamber Music Collective Faculty Concert: The Chamber Music Collective faculty (Sezi Seskir, Roger Moseley, Patricia Garcia Gil, Lucy Russell, Keiran Campbell, and Jean Bernard Cerin) explore the theme of “recreation,” a concept that embraces renewal, transformation, and the collaborative spirit of musical performance. The Program includes songs arranged for cello and piano by Fauré and the Mendelssohns, songs for voice and piano by Copland and Britten, Brahms’ String Sextet in G Major arranged for piano trio, and Moseley’s Variations on a Fictional Theme for four hands and Conrad Graf piano.
Thursday, June 25, 7:30 p.m., Lincoln Hall B20
Chamber Music Collective Faculty & Student Concert: The Chamber Music Collective faculty and students explore the theme of “recreation”—a concept that embraces renewal, transformation, and the collaborative spirit of musical performance. (performers and repertoire TBA)
Friday, June 26, 4 p.m., Lincoln Hall B20
Chamber Music Collective Gala Concert: The Chamber Music Collective faculty and students explore the theme of “recreation”—a concept that embraces renewal, transformation, and the collaborative spirit of musical performance. This concert is centered on the Bach cantata In allen meinen Taten.
Saturday, June 27
Piano Tech Academy, 9 a.m., Lincoln Hall B20
Renowned fortepiano builder Rod Regier gives a presentation on the history and origins of Viennese piano. Reiger is one of the world’s foremost makers of keyboard instruments based on historical examples.
Piano Tech Academy, 10:30 a.m., Lincoln Hall B20
Restorer-technician Ken Eschete presents on Conservation Basics and the Ship of Theseus. Eschete is a Professional Associate in the American Institute for Conservation and has worked with the Smithsonian and Colonial Williamsburg.
More News from A&S
Cornell classicist: White House UFC event mirrors Imperial Rome’s spectacles
Classics
