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The CCHK is pleased to reprise “The Piano Trios of Robert Schumann,” featuring Professor Xak Bjerken’s trio, the Taliesin Trio, which was previously given as part of our salon series at the A. D. White House. This special Mother’s Day event will take place on Sunday, May 8 at the Ithaca Waldorf School.

To celebrate International Women’s Day, Lucy Fitz-Gibbon (Cornell interim director of vocal studies) organized a master class and recital for students in the voice and piano studios that featured art song and solo piano repertoire by women composers.

The CCHK is excited to continue our new Friday evening Salon series as we segue into the sunnier side of spring, with an interactive performance featuring the Center’s artist-in-residence, Mike Lee, on March 25, and Professor Xak Bjerken’s piano trio, Taliesin Trio, on April 1.

Stockhausen’s MANTRA (1970), to be performed by our fellow keyboarding colleagues Andrew Zhou and Ryan McCullough of HereNowHear, amalgamates electronics with the acoustic piano in ways that blur the line between the analog and the digital.

Our space at 726 University Avenue has seen extensive use for external teaching. We have been able to share the resources of our center with those outside Cornell through digital technology and we have hosted guest teaching artists and students on site.

On February 4–5, the CCHK’s partner organization, Cornell ReSounds, presented play | pen, a two-day virtual symposium concentrating on connections between past musical inventions and new media designs, thus fortifying Cornell as a hub for the collaborative performance on instruments old and new.

The CCHK and its affiliate organization the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies put on Diversity and Belonging: Unsung Keyboard Stories, a whopping five-day conference that scrutinized important and timely issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the history of keyboard cultures.

As a denouement to the semester, we are happy to share two beautifully produced videos: excerpts from Mike Lee’s program, “Bach’s Piano,” on September 24, and a set of highlights from the end-of-semester gala concert on December 10. Both videos display the breadth and depth of the CCHK’s collections as well as the rich musicianship exhibited by Cornell keyboard faculty and students. Enjoy!

As a teaser for the final events of Future Imperfect: Brahms and the Passage of Time – a performance of variations on Friday, November 12 and the Op. 8 Piano Trio on Saturday, November 13 – we are delighted to upload new web content based on two events from earlier in the series: a roundtable with Jacquelyn Sholes and a performance by Malcolm Bilson.