Malcolm Bilson speaks at International Fortepiano Salon Online

HUNTER – Renowned fortepianist and scholar Malcolm Bilson, a leading figure in the revival of historical performance, will join hosts Yiheng Yang and Patricia Garcia-Gil at the International Fortepiano Salon Online on Sunday, April 27 at 12:00 PM. “I am delighted to be asked to speak to the International Fortepiano Salon this month,” he says. “I have been working for a time on a lecture about dotted rhythms, about which I have perhaps somewhat radical ideas, and which I hope will stimulate reactions from some of you.” Celebrated for his insightful interpretations and provocative scholarship, Bilson’s presentation promises to be both engaging and illuminating, featuring musical examples and video excerpts.

Malcolm Bilson has been in the forefront of the period-instrument movement for over fifty years. A member of the Cornell Music Department from 1968, he began his pioneering activity in the early 1970s as a performer of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert on late 18th- and early 19th-century pianos. Since then he has proven to be a key contributor to the restoration of the fortepiano to the concert stage and to fresh recordings of the “mainstream” repertory. In addition to an extensive career as a soloist and chamber player, Bilson has toured with the English Baroque Soloists with John Eliot Gardiner, the Academy of Ancient Music with Christopher Hogwood, the Philharmonia Baroque under Nicholas McGegan, Tafelmusik of Toronto, Concerto Köln and other early and modern instrument orchestras around the world. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by Bard College and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Mr. Bilson has recorded the three most important complete cycles of  works for piano by Mozart: the piano concertos with John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists, the piano-violin Sonatas with Sergiu Luca, and the solo piano sonatas. His traversal on period pianos of the Schubert piano sonatas (including the so-called incomplete sonatas) was completed in 2003, and in 2005 a single CD of Haydn sonatas appeared on the Claves label. In the fall of 1994 Bilson and six of his former artist-pupils from Cornell’s D.M.A. program in historical performance practice presented the 32 piano sonatas of Beethoven in New York City, the first time ever that these works had been given as a cycle on period instruments. The New York Times said that “what emerged in these performances was an unusually clear sense of how revolutionary these works must have sounded in their time.” The recording of this series garnered over fifty very positive reviews.

In addition to his activities in Cornell’s performance-practice program, Professor Bilson teaches piano to both graduate and undergraduate students. In the 1990s he was Adjunct Professor at the Eastman School of Music. He has given annual summer fortepiano workshops at various locations in the United States and Europe as well as master classes and lectures (generally in conjunction with solo performances) around the world. In his educational video entitled “Knowing the Score,” released in 2005, Bilson discusses the question: Do we really know how to read the notation of the so-called ‘classical’ masters?

Bilson will speak at the International Fortepiano Salon Online, a program of the Catskill Mountain Foundation’s Piano Performance Museum in Hunter, New York, on Sunday, April 27 at 12 PM. Click here to watch on Facebook and here to watch on YouTube. Ask questions and comment on Professor Bilson’s presentation to join the conversation. www.catskillmtn.org

The following salon entitled “Trailblazers: A New Generation of Asians in Early Music”, will be on May 18 at 2 PM, featuring guest artists Ruiqi Ren, baroque violinist, Hilda Huang, fortepianist, and Alison Lau, vocalist. For Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (API month) this May, the International Fortepiano Salon engages in conversation with, and highlights the creativity and vision of the next generation of early music leaders who come from an Asian background. Enjoy performances by the guest artists, as well as conversations about their unique journeys and sense of identity and purpose in the classical early music field. 

About Catskill Mountain Foundation
The Catskill Mountain Foundation’s (CMF) aim is to provide educational opportunities in the arts for youth and lifelong learners, to bring the experience of the arts to the Catskill community, and to support artists and art organizations in the development of their work through residencies. Since its founding in 1998, CMF has presented hundreds of music, dance, and theater performances; screened over 1,000 films to tens of thousands of audience members; provided studio arts classes to thousands of students of all ages; and served thousands of art-loving patrons in the Catskill Mountain Foundation Gift Shop. The Catskill Mountain Foundation operates the Doctorow Center for the Arts in Hunter, the Orpheum Performing Arts Center in Tannersville, and the Sugar Maples Center for Creative Arts in Maplecrest, NY.

Since 1998, CMF has raised, generated, and invested close to $16 million in facility development and an excess of $42 million in programming operations, for a total investment in the Catskill community of over $58 million. Catskill Mountain Foundation is supported in part by New York State Council on the Arts, the Greene County Cultural Fund administered by the Greene County Legislature, The Jarvis and Constance Doctorow Family Foundation, The Royce Family Foundation, The Samuel and Esther Doctorow Fund, The Orville and Ethel Slutzky Family Foundation, Platte Clove Bruderhof Community, Bank of Greene County Charitable Foundation, The Greene County Youth Bureau, Marshall & Sterling Insurance, All Souls’ Church, Stewarts Shops, Windham Foundation, and by private donations. CMF believes that the arts can transform the lives of those touched by it and can transform the community. Like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, and subscribe to our YouTube channel.