Attended The Westfield Center Conference: The Forte/Piano, Cornell University, Aug. 5-9, 2015
I attended Forte/Piano, a once in a lifetime gathering of the world’s many of the greatest lovers of the historical piano including performers, scholars, and builders. Words cannot express. It was an honor and a privilege.
HKSNA 2015 in Montreal, May 20-24
Attended a fabulous meeting of the Historical Keyboard Society of North America, for which I serve on the Board, in beautiful Montreal at McGill University.
AMIS 2014: Summary of the Ivory Movement Restrictions, May 31st, 2014
At the Annual Meeting of The American Musical Instrument Society, I gave an invited but extemporaneous presentation on the current state of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife’s extreme restrictions on movement of items containing even antique ivory and how this affects musicians and other owners and collectors of musical instruments.
AMIS 2014 Talk: Recent Research in Keyboard Instrument Key-Touch Response at The Piano Design Lab
May 31, 2014, at The Annual Meeting of the American Musical Instrument Society, Sawmill Creek Resort, Huron, Ohio. Presented a paper on research at The Piano Design Lab, University of Waterloo, Ontario by Dr. Stephen Birkett and myself. Results to be published, so you’ll just have to suffer and wonder here!
Boston Early Music Festival Exhibition, June 2013
I had a great time exhibiting at the Boston Early Music Festival Exhibition, running the booth for The Paris Workshop with the other North American agent, Gerald Self. I also brought two of my own instruments, a Flemish Double Manual harpsichord and a fretted clavichord, both of which I was gratified to see were well received. I’ll be back in 2015!
No, I wasn’t doing nothing for a year and a half! Senior Editor and contributor for the 2nd Edition of the Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments.
Yes, I played quite a few concerts during this time with The Goliards and The Savannah Childrens Choir, as well as with the Savannah Philharmonic Chamber Music Series, and I gave talks. So why have I not updated this website? For the last several years, I was serving as a Senior Editor and contributor to the 2nd edition of the Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments for Oxford University Press. As you might imagine it took a LOT of time! What a great job it was though. I was in charge of all stringed keyboard instruments, as well as many organs, a few odds and ends, and all the Electronics and many of the Acoustics and other unusual modern creations. We wrapped up in June 2013 and since then I’ve been playing catch up in my workshop. I may or may not get around to putting in the performances and the like from the last couple years as really do need to work on my instrument queue and practice for the next concerts!
PTG Workshop October 8th, 2011, Savannah, Georgia
On Saturday, October 8th, I hosted an all day workshop for members of the Savannah-Charleston chapters of the Piano Technicians Guild. Members were able to up close study and discuss a circa 1800 Broadwood square, harpsichord stringing issues, making hitchpin loops and stringing using hole-less tuning pins, and studied a late 19th century Chickering upright piano action.
For more information about the PTG, see: PTG
May 14, 2011 Lecture and Performance at SEHKS Conference
At the South Eastern Historical Keyboard Society Conference, this year in Macon, Georgia, I will be giving a lecture on “An Introduction to the English Square Piano”, and that night performing a Philadelphia Sonata by Reinagle and Dussek’s, The Sufferings of the Queen of France on an 1805 Tomkison square piano I restored in 2010 on a program with other performers.
For more information see www.sehks.org
September 2010, Presentation at Westfield Center Conference, Yale University
September 24-26, 2010
Invited speaker at this conference on historic keyboards. I will be discussing the characteristics of the pianos of Chopin’s time and after and how they affect performance and interpretation of his music. Demonstrations will use the instruments at the Yale Musical Instruments Collection.
For more information see:
http://westfield.music.cornell.edu/chopin/
Vienna Talk 2010 Presentation
September 19, 2010
Presenting “Impact Dynamics of Felt Piano Hammers” with Dr. Stephen Birkett at Vienna Talk 2010 in Vienna, Austria
For more information, see:
http://viennatalk.mdw.ac.at/