In Friday’s (7/18) New York Times, Anthony Tommasini writes about Mannes College the New School for Music’s sixteenth annual two-week International Keyboard Institute and Festival. “On Wednesday, the third full day of the festival … the award-winning 32-year-old German pianist Alexander Schimpf played a varied program culminating with Beethoven’s mighty ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata. Later that evening, the Israeli pianist Alon Goldstein, admired for the refinement and imaginativeness of his performances, played a formidable program on the Masters series. The recitals were presented at the intimate concert hall of the Mannes College building on the Upper West Side, which seats just 275. The institute draws student pianists who participate in workshops and master classes and, naturally, attend almost every recital.… As it happens, this could be the last festival. Mannes’s longtime building has been sold, and the college is relocating, starting in the fall of 2015, to a newly renovated space in Arnhold Hall at the New School in Greenwich Village. Next summer, the institution will be in the process of moving, so the keyboard festival will not take place, and its future is uncertain. This would be a loss to audiences in New York.” Tommasini comments on Goldstein’s “beautifully balanced approach” to Beethoven’s “Les Adieux” Sonata, and Schimpf’s “vibrant, articulate account of Bach’s Toccata in E minor.”
Posted July 18, 2014
