Malcolm Bilson, piano

Sunday, April 6, 2008, at 3:00 p.m.

After many years pianist Malcolm Bilson returns to the Collection for a performance of solo keyboard works by Classical masters on two restored Viennese pianos.  Mr. Bilson performed several times in the museum at the onset of his long and distinguished career during which he has played a leading role in bringing the piano in its formative stages of development to the attention of audiences all over the world.

A member of the Cornell Music Department since 1968, he began

his pioneering activity in the early 1970s as a performer of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert on late 18th and early 19th-century pianos. Since then he has proven to be a key contributor to the restoration of the fortepiano to the concert stage and to fresh recordings of the "mainstream" repertory.

Malcolm Bilson has toured with the English Baroque Soloists, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Philharmonia Baroque, Tafelmusik, Concerto Köln and other period instrument orchestras throughout the world. Highlights of his vast discography include a set of the complete piano concertos of Mozart on the Archiv label and all 32 piano sonatas of Beethoven recorded by Bilson and six of his students on the Claves label using nine period pianos, each of a type exactly contemporaneous with the work played.