Historical Keyboards

05/19/2026

As the semester comes to a close, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who collaborated with CCHK this year, attended our events, contributed ideas, and helped create such rich, thoughtful, and genuinely fun conversations throughout the semester.

These are some lovely pics from the last salon, featuring a newly composed duet by Roger Moseley and Mozart’s triple concerto for keyboards — both pieces a constant dialogue, (and “trialogue”!) between musicians (and the audience!).

That spirit feels deeply connected to what CCHK has been building together this year: spaces for dialogue, collaboration, curiosity, and shared creativity. Which leads me to one of the true highlights of the year — the foundation of CLAVIS. I’m incredibly excited for what this new initiative will continue to foster moving forward.

Thank you all for being part of this community and for making this year so meaningful. Wishing everyone a restorative and inspiring summer, and I look forward to continuing these conversations and collaborations in the future.

Wheeler photos (except the ones taking with a phone, which are Morelli’s)

05/12/2026

Registration for the 2026 Fortepiano Tech Conference at the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards is now open!

Join us for two days of instruction by Ken Eschete and Ken Walkup. Dates are Friday and Saturday, June 26 & 27, 2026, with an opening reception on Thursday evening. Attendance is limited to 12; this is our third time hosting this conference, and both previous events have sold out quickly.

This year, we’re delighted to have fortepiano builder Rod Regier with us! This is a great opportunity to learn Viennese piano voicing and regulation from one of the masters.

Other topics:

Historical piano conservation basics
English piano regulation
“Grab Bag” of tips and techniques for repairing and regulating historical pianos
A chance to hear and see Cornell’s amazing collection of keyboard instruments
Our conference will overlap with Cornell’s Summer Academy, a chance for young musicians to explore the world of historical keyboard instruments. We’ll be able to attend their final concert on Friday evening.

Cost is $550, including three nights lodging at Toni Morrison Hall (dorm), lunch on Friday and Saturday; an opening reception late on Thursday afternoon; and dinner Friday night following the concert.

Please join us, we look forward to meeting you.

Link to the registration form:

https://form.jotform.com/261195863184061

05/08/2026

All ready for the final salon staged by the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards at the A. D. White House this Friday, May 8.

Three pianos and two performances of a short –but beautiful and fun!–program: one at 5:00pm and the other at 7:30pm.

To start, Federico Ercoli and Roger Moseley will perform Roger’s recently composed Variations on a Fictional Theme in G Minor for Four Hands and 1823 Conrad Graf Piano, inspired by one of the CCHK’s instruments as well as the Romantic music and literature associated with it.
The variations will be followed by Mozart’s Concerto in F Major for Three Pianos, K. 242, performed by Federico, Patricia García Gil, and Roger Moseley in an arrangement for three pianos without orchestra.

We would be delighted to see you there!

04/29/2026

Thank you to everyone who joined us for Piano Portraits: Art and Music-Making in London, ca. 1800 at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University.

This special afternoon lecture/concert was the culmination of a rich, day-long program that began with a morning study session, bringing together paper conservators, curators, art historians, performers, instrument makers, and scholars for thoughtful presentations and discussion. We are deeply grateful to all participants in the study day for their insights into the materials, histories, and preservation of artworks and instruments, and for helping to shape such a meaningful exchange of ideas.

I would like to extend special thanks to Andrew C. Weislogel, Soyeon Choi, Laurence Libin, Thomas Strange, and Andrew Willis for their illuminating contributions to the morning sessions, and to our afternoon presenters and performers—Andrew C. Weislogel, Roger Moseley, and Addi Liu—for bringing these conversations to life in sound.

It was a pleasure to share this experience with such an engaged audience, and to celebrate the newly acquired Anna Tonelli pastel alongside historical instruments from the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards and the Sigal Music Museum.

For those who would like to revisit the event, you can read coverage in the Cornell Daily Sun and view photos (by Simon Wheeler) from the day:

https://www.cornellsun.com/article/2026/04/piano-portraits-at-the-johnson-museum

With warm appreciation,
Patricia

04/22/2026

Piano Portraits: Art and Music-Making in London, ca. 1800
Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University

Friday April 24th, 2:00–3:30 PM

Join us for an afternoon lecture/concert exploring the fascinating connections between art, music-making, and piano culture in London around 1800.

Centered around the Johnson Museum’s newly acquired pastel portrait of women musicians by Anna Tonelli, this program brings the image to life through conversation and performance on historical instruments, including the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards’ 1799 London Broadwood fortepiano.

📍 Margaret and Frank Robinson Lecture Hall, Johnson Museum, Level 2L

With:

Andrew C. Weislogel
Patricia Garcia Gil, piano/harpsichord
Roger Moseley, piano
Addi Liu, violin

3:30 PM
Reception following in the Hirsch Lecture Lobby

A chance to reflect on women’s music-making, historical instruments, art, and conservation in a shared space of listening and dialogue.

PianoHistory ArtAndMusic WomenInMusic CornellUniversity LectureConcert

04/21/2026

04/06/2026

Alright, this is good! I just found out from a friend: Clara Schumann on a Nannette Streicher replica made by Barbara Wolf, featured on the National Public Radio. This is a live recording I made for Northwest Focus Radio (Classical King FM) in Seattle last November, through Early Music Seattle. 🥰

https://livesessions.npr.org/videos/patricia-garcia-gil-clara-schumann-soirees-musicales-op-6

04/06/2026

Join us for the second concert of the Spring 2026 Piano Series at the Johnson Museum in collaboration with the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards: New Student Music for the Museum.

This special program features premieres of new works by DMA composition students Eliat Bark, Jasmin Morris, and Coral Douglas, inspired by the Johnson Museum’s spring exhibitions: contemporary painting centered on Naples, devotional art of Bali, and a new gift of Native North American art.

Performed by Jack Yarbrough, Federico Ercoli, and Patricia Garcia Gil on an original Broadwood piano (London, 1865) from the CCHK collection.

The event explores the meeting point of music, art, and new creative work.

A beautiful chance to experience new music in conversation with the Museum’s galleries!

03/28/2026

New video on our YouTube!

Louise Farrenc was far more than a composer: she was a pianist, educator, editor, advocate for pay equity, and a powerful force in 19th-century musical life.

This video offers a short recap of our symposium at Cornell University, held in November 2025 to commemorate 150 years since her passing: https://youtu.be/NfyR1VRJpZ0

Through performances, talks, coaching sessions, and interdisciplinary collaboration, the event brought together students, faculty, guest artists, and scholars to revisit Farrenc’s legacy and connect it to ongoing conversations about gender, labor, pedagogy, and representation in music.

Grateful to everyone who made this event possible and helped bring Farrenc’s work back into focus.



This video has been made by .film

03/14/2026

A wonderful start to the Spring Piano Series at the Johnson Museum of Art!

Our first event, Beyond the Parlor—Women Shaping American Musical Life, 1860–1930, explored how women helped shape piano culture in the United States from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century.

Presented by the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards in collaboration with the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, the program moved through a cultural landscape connecting salons, music clubs, lecture-recitals, and the concert stage—tracing networks of travel, exchange, and artistic collaboration across the U.S., Latin America, and Europe.

Patricia Garcia Gil (Postdoctoral Associate and Artist in Residence at CCHK), Emma Zhuang and Benjamin Skoronski (PhD students in Sound Studies at Cornell) and Jakub Koguciuk (Lynch Postdoctoral Associate for Curricular Engagement), brought into dialogue music and visual works from the Johnson Museum’s collection.

Thinking through the idea of “staffage,” we imagined this program as a landscape populated by figures—musical and visual—whose lives reveal recurring questions of migration, cosmopolitanism, authorship, and artistic visibility.

A special moment at the end invited the audience to explore our curated “album leaves” selections and to begin assembling their own mental binders of the pieces and images that resonated most.

Grateful for the wonderful audience and collaborators who made this first event such a success. Looking forward to the next concerts in the series!

ArtAndMusic ConcertSeries BeyondTheParlor

03/12/2026

Beyond the Parlor — Women Shaping American Musical Life (1860–1930)

This Friday we explore a musical world that moved between salons, music clubs, and concert stages, where women played a decisive role in building piano culture in the United States.

From parlor dances and Civil War–era ballads to Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata, the program traces a network of travel, study, and artistic exchange linking the U.S., Latin America, and Europe.

Visual works from the Johnson Museum of Art are woven into the program, creating a shared landscape of images and sounds from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

📅 Friday, March 13
🕧 12:30–1:30 PM
📍 Robinson Lecture Hall, Cornell

Presented by Emma Zhuang, Benjamin Skoronski, Patricia García Gil, and Jakub Koguciuk
Cosponsored by the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards & the Johnson Museum of Art

ConcertSeries BeyondTheParlor