Academy of Fortepiano Performance Festival

By Joan Oldknow

The Academy of Fortepiano Performance Festival returns to the Catskill Mountain Foundation’s Piano Performance Museum in Hunter for the sixth year from May 28-June 5, 2023. The festival offers fortepiano classes, lectures and performance opportunities to students visiting from world-renowned university music programs. These students receive instruction in the special requirements of early pianos, and learn how their sounds and techniques match the music of the composers of their time.

Maria Rose, one of the Festival’s founding faculty members, talks about the importance of the historical perspective that the Festival provides: “You’re listening to music, but you are also looking at history. You’re hearing the music through a lens of history. It’s a learning process. We revitalize it all the time. It’s a continuous process that never ends … There’s a lot we don’t know.”

The Festival begins with the faculty concert, “Memorializing the Masters: Works by Mozart, Hüllmandel, Beethoven, and Clara Schumann” on Sunday, May 28 at 8 pm at the Doctorow Center for the Arts. Faculty members Audrey Axinn, Maria Rose, and Andrew Willis will be joined by special guest Keiko Shichijo for this concert.

Audrey Axinn

One of AFP’s founders, Audrey Axinn is a sensitive and vibrant performer on historical pianos and a teacher of historical piano performance at The Juilliard School and Mannes School of Music. She was the associate dean and a member of the team that launched Juilliard’s new international branch campus in China.

Maria Rose

Maria Rose, a native of the Netherlands, is a brilliant performer on historical pianos, covering a wide range of repertoire. She also holds a PhD in musicology from New York University and has published many articles on piano performance practice.

Andrew Willis

For several decades, faculty member Andrew Willis has explored the historical development of keyboard instruments and their performance practice while maintaining a commitment to the study, performance, and teaching of the widest possible range of repertoire. A Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Willis teaches piano, fortepiano, and harpsichord performance and leads courses on keyboard literature and performance practice.

Keiko Shichijo

Pianist and fortepianist Keiko Shichijo is a special voice in both the Classical and new music worlds. Her traditional Japanese sensibilities combined with her knowledge of European historical performance practices shape her unique vision, and this is reflected in her feeling for the music, the instruments and the story behind them. Hailing from Japan and residing in the Netherlands for more than a decade, she is active around the world playing both solo and chamber music. She is a piano and fortepiano professor at the Fontys Academy for Music and Performing Arts Tilburg in the Netherlands, a piano professor at KASK & Conservatorium School of Arts Gent in Belgium.

During the festival, students will attend lectures and classes, go on a mid-week hike, and prepare for the June 4 student concert at the end of the festival.

Robert Levin

On June 3, Robert Levin will teach an afternoon master class and give an evening lecture-recital. Levin is a retired Harvard professor who regularly gives master classes and is completing unfinished works by Mozart. He is famous among musicians as a performer, lecturer, musicologist, author and composer. Levin is presently Visiting Professor at The Juilliard School.

Every year since the Festival began, students have asked, “Can it be longer?” They love Hunter and they love the whole experience. Axinn and Rose started talking originally about a chamber music week, since their experience is that everybody wants to play chamber music on the fortepiano. They decided, however, that there is just not enough time to manage the regular program and also have chamber music ensembles. The idea came about to alternate chamber music with vocal music as an extra week after the Academy of Fortepiano Performance Festival.

Drew Minter

Thus, a new addition to the Academy of Fortepiano Performance Festival this year is a Vocal Week extension of the program from June 6 through June 12, with a faculty concert on June 10 at 8 pm and a student concert on June 11 at 2 pm. Led by Drew Minter, who is very well known in the Baroque world, the vocal week promises to be a highly anticipated learning experience for all participants. Minter is an international star in Baroque Opera who happens to live in the Hudson Valley. Usually he is teaching and unavailable during the summers, so Axinn and Rose are excited that Minter is able to teach in the AFP Vocal Week this year. Minter is a beautiful singer and, unbeknownst to many people, an accomplished painter. He is also a certified in the Feldenkrais Method, which will be offered to participants each day during the vocal week. Audrey Axinn is thrilled with the new addition to the Festival: “When you add another instrument such as a singer’s voice to the solo piano, you add another dimension. It has a profound effect on the singer, to be singing with a fortepiano, as opposed to a modern piano. It allows the singer to create a sound that’s porous and allows breath to flow and be more expressive. This is going to be amazing.”

The festival will be preceded by the AFP Technicans Workshop for piano technicians who are interested in learning the special requirements of fortepianos. This workshop began in 2022 and allowed experienced and not so experienced technicians and tuners to attend lectures and see the inner workings on early instruments. Maki Masayuki and Richard Hester will again organize the AFP Technicians workshop, which will be held on May 25-27, 2023 in Hunter.

Tickets for all public events can be purchased online at www. catskillmtn.org or by contacting the box office via email at boxoffice@catskillmtn.org or by phone at 518 263 2063. Note that online ticket sales close 5 hours prior to performance time. Tickets purchased ahead are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors and $7 for students. Tickets purchased at the door are $30 for adults, $25 for seniors and $7 for students. For information about upcoming programs at Catskill Mountain Foundation, please visit www.catskillmtn.org.