Historical Keyboards

11/02/2026

Athanasius Kircher: Music, Machines, and the Marvelous
November 5–6 | Cornell University

Step into the extraordinary sonic universe of Athanasius Kircher (1602–1680), where music meets mathematics, machines, nature, and imagination!
Join us for two days of talks, performances, demonstrations, and an experimental musical Salon exploring fantastical instruments, algorithmic composition, and the fascinating connections between human, animal, and machine-generated sound.
Nov 5 | Lincoln Hall, Room 124 | 4–6:30 PM
Nov 6 | Kroch Library, Room 2B48 | 10:30 AM–12 PM
Nov 6 | A. D. White House | 5 PM
A Musical Wunderkammer: Kircher’s Sound Universe
Organized by Patricia García Gil and Laurent Ferri.
Come discover what a seventeenth-century imagination can teach us about music, creativity, and even AI today!

10/26/2026

Almost a month has passed, and we are still thinking about this very special evening! ❤️

Performing Mozart’s Concerto for Three Keyboards and Orchestra—and Les petits riens!—with Roger Moseley and Federico Ercoli, alongside the wonderful Cornell Chamber Orchestra, was such a memorable and meaningful experience. There is something extraordinary about sharing music in this way: listening, responding, playing together, and finding moments of connection that can only happen in a live performance.

A heartfelt thank you to Gabriela Gómez Estévez for her wonderful direction, to Cynthia Roberts for her invaluable contribution, and to every musician in the orchestra for their energy, generosity, and beautiful playing. I feel very lucky to have shared the stage with all of you! Bravo to Emma Zhuang at the harpsichord for a most exciting Vivaldi concerto!!

Thank you also to the Cornell Center for Historical Keyboards (intended as a community of amazing people) for making it possible to bring three beautiful historical keyboards together, and to everyone who joined us that evening.

Finally sharing a few photographs that bring back some wonderful memories. Thank you, Simon Wheeler, for capturing these moments so beautifully! 📷

10/22/2026

Ready to host this event at CCHK! Jean Bernard Cerin and Patricia García Gil will be presenting “On the Fringes of Liberty”

A Salon about revolutionaries in Haiti and France who stood at the edges of freedom’s promise.

10/18/2026

A wonderful afternoon of music, movement, and discovery!

As part of our project “Embodiment, Playfulness, and Performance as Communication,” we had the pleasure of welcoming Julia Bengtsson of the New York Baroque Dance Company for a fascinating, informative, and incredibly fun historical dance workshop at the Johnson Museum of Art!

Through movement, gesture, and dance, Julia brought the social and theatrical world of eighteenth-century music to life, reminding us how much we can learn about music by experiencing it with our bodies.

A huge thank you to Julia for her knowledge, energy, and enthusiasm and to the wonderful Cornell Chamber Orchestra students for providing live music for the dancers (and to Cynthia Roberts for her invaluable help and support in bringing everything together).

Photos by Simon Wheeler.

09/15/2026

Preparations for our September 30 concert are going wonderfully—we can’t wait to share this program with you!

09/12/2026

We have a lot of music happening this week!

Bring a friend and begin making some music-filled memories this semester. 🙌

09/10/2026

A new season at CCHK is underway ✨
This September, we begin Embodiment, Playfulness, and Performance as Communication—a series exploring Mozart through commedia dell’arte, pantomime, dance, visual culture, historical keyboards, and collaborative performance.
📍 Sept. 11, 5 PM — A. D. White House
Commedia dell’arte, Pantomime, and Embodied Musical Meaning
📍 Sept. 29, 12:30 PM — Johnson Museum of Art
Mozart in France: Theatrical and Pictorial Contexts –– and a dance workshop!
📍 Sept. 30, 7:30 PM — Barnes Hall
Sociability, Playfulness, and Eighteenth-Century Performance
These events open our larger 2027 Golden Record Project, asking how music communicates across bodies, cultures, technologies, and forms of listening.

If you have a friend who would enjoy hearing from us, they can join our mailing list by entering the following address in their browser, then add their name and email address and click Subscribe. They will receive an email asking them to confirm their subscription: https://lists.cornell.edu/CCHK-NEWS-L/subscribe/

We hope to see you there!

08/21/2026

Sharing from the Music Department: Auditions continue through this weekend!
➡️https://music.cornell.edu/audition-updates
🔥You could also have access to an extraordinary collection of keyboard instruments spanning several centuries of musical technology—from clavichords and harpsichords to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fortepianos, iconic analog instruments such as an original 1970s Minimoog Model D, and cutting-edge digital keyboards with multidimensional, pressure-sensitive touch surfaces!
➡️https://historicalkeyboards.as.cornell.edu/

08/21/2026

You could also have access to an extraordinary collection of keyboard instruments spanning several centuries of musical technology—from clavichords and harpsichords to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century fortepianos, iconic analog instruments such as an original 1970s Minimoog Model D, and cutting-edge digital keyboards with multidimensional, pressure-sensitive touch surfaces! https://historicalkeyboards.as.cornell.edu/ Cornell Music

Ready to make music this semester?!

Auditions for ensembles and individual lessons continue through this weekend! Explore opportunities to perform, grow as a musician, and connect with fellow students.

Visit the link in our comments for requirements, schedules, and audition details. 👇

06/16/2026

CCHK was delighted to take part in the Historical Keyboard Society of North America Conference, Keyboard Pedagogy: From the Renaissance through the First Viennese School, held in Bologna and Florence from June 10–13, 2026, and organized by Patricia Garcia Gil, Marcos Krieger, and Maria Luisa Baldassari.

The conference brought us into contact with extraordinary institutions, collections, and instruments, including the Conservatorio di Musica “G. B. Martini,” the Museo di San Colombano – Collezione Tagliavini, the Museo Internazionale e Biblioteca della Musica, the Basilica di San Petronio, and the Accademia Bartolomeo Cristofori in Florence.

The closing concert at the Accademia Bartolomeo Cristofori was a truly moving moment: Roger Moseley, Federico Ercoli, and Patricia García Gil performed (at once!) on three original pianos from before 1800 (Schantz, Könnicke, and Corsini)— beautifully prepared, as always, by the extraordinary women of the Laboratorio di Restauro del Fortepiano: Donatella Degiampietro, Antonella Conti, and Barbara Mingazzini, whose work has preserved and brought these instruments to life for more than thirty years.

Ludovica Vincenti also joined the concert, delighting us with music by J. S. Bach and Elisabetta de Gambarini, before performing duets by Maria Cosway with Patricia García Gil.
One piano, then two, then three — and with each step, another layer of history, sound, collaboration, and friendship came alive.
It was emotional to witness so many worlds colliding: Cornell’s Center for Historical Keyboards, Italian institutions, historic collections, restoration expertise, scholarship, performance, and instruments that still have so much to say.

A heartfelt thank you to everyone who made this conference possible, including our very own Andrew Willis and Morton Wan, who offered so much support ❤️