Bard College Conservatory of Music Presents
Visiting Artist Recital and Master Class: Andrew Willis, fortepiano, performs Bach Partitas
Wednesday, April 3, 2019
Bitó Conservatory Building
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Bach Partitas performed on a fortepiano in the Cristofori tradition
Andrew Willis received the foundation of his musical outlook as a student of Mieczyslaw Horszowski at The Curtis Institute of Music (BM, 1972). The cultivation of collaborative skills under the tutelage of Lambert Orkis at Temple University (MM, 1982) further expanded his horizons. At Cornell University (DMA, 1994), working with Malcolm Bilson and the faculty of the Center for Eighteenth-Century Music, he discovered the full joy of musical performance realized on historical keyboard instruments through the application of performance practices suitable to each stylistic era.Andrew Willis's broad range as a performer has produced a varied discography. As a participant in the first complete recording of the Beethoven sonata cycle on period instruments, his performance of Op. 106 was hailed by The New York Times as "a 'Hammerklavier' of rare stature." As a modern pianist interested in contemporary repertoire, he commissioned, premiered, and recorded Martin Amlin's Sonata No. 7 (2000) as part of a program including other works by Amlin, Fine, and Copland. Equally at home as a collaborative pianist, he has partnered soprano Julianne Baird in recordings of Schubert Lieder and Rossini songs, soprano Georgine Resick in early-Romantic song cycles, and flutist Sue Ann Kahn in music of Rochberg, Schickele, Luening, Kraft, and Ibert. His most recent releases presented chamber music of Emanuel Bach on fortepiano with Rebecca Troxler and Chopin on an 1848 Pleyel with Brent Wissick.
A Professor of Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Willis teaches piano, fortepiano, and harpsichord performance and leads courses on keyboard literature and performance practice.
For more information, call 845-758-7196, e-mail [email protected],
or visit https://bard.edu/conservatory.
Time: 4:00 pm – 6:00 pm EDT/GMT-4
Location: Bitó Conservatory Building