On Sunday, October 14, 2012, at 3:00 p.m., The Rivers School Conservatory will host keyboardist Peter Sykes for an afternoon of historical keyboard discussion and demonstration. The event will take place in Rivera Recital Hall, Bradley Hall, and is free and open to the public.
Peter Sykes will focus on the construction, history, and expressive musical potential of the clavichord, a predecessor of the modern piano. He will perform on two different clavichords: a small, Renaissance-style, triple-fretted instrument and a larger, late Baroque-style, double fretted instrument. Mr. Sykes will demonstrate the clavichord’s rich and varied repertoire spanning three centuries with works by Narvaes, Frescobaldi, Scheidemann, Froberger, J. S. and C.P. E. Bach, Herbert Howells, and Haydn.
About the Artist
Peter Sykes is Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Historical Performance Department at Boston University, where he teaches organ, harpsichord, performance practice, and continuo realization. He is also Music Director of First Church in Cambridge, Director of the Baroque Academy of the Amherst Early Music Festival, and director of the Keyboard Day segment of the Boston Early Music Festival.
He performs extensively on the harpsichord, clavichord, and organ, and has made ten solo recordings of organ repertoire ranging from Buxtehude, Couperin, and Bach, to Reger and Hindemith, and his acclaimed organ transcription of Holst’s The Planets. Newly released is a recording of the complete Bach harpsichord partitas on the Centaur label and soon to be released will be an all-Bach clavichord recording and the complete Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier. He also performs and records with Boston Baroque and Aston Magna.
A founding board member and current president of the Boston Clavichord Society, he is the recipient of the Chadwick Medal (1978) and Outstanding Alumni Award (2005) from the New England Conservatory, the Erwin Bodky Prize (1993) from the Cambridge Society for Early Music, and the Distinguished Artist Award from the St. Botolph Club Foundation (2011).