Historical Pianos, Lost Musical Practices, and Reframing Clara Schumann

This talk will provide a rare opportunity to hear a fortepiano, the predecessor of the modern piano. Most of the music performed on the modern piano was conceived on and written for fortepianos, and pianist David Kim will shed light on the musical consequences of using different instruments. The idea that prior musical practices differed greatly from today's will be extended to improvisation, with special focus on the extemporizations of Clara Schumann, perhaps the 19th century's most important pianist and improviser.

David Kim has performed in Australia, South Korea, Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Italy, Germany, the UK, and throughout North America. He has conducted residencies at Stanford, Bucknell, Indiana-Bloomington, Duke, and Pennsylvania State Universities, the Universities of Utah, Washington, and Wyoming, and Colby and Bowdoin Colleges, as well as serving as guest speaker and performer at the University of Michigan Piano Festival and the University of California-Berkeley’s Piano Institute, and appearances at the Banff, Orvieto, and Norfolk Music festivals.