The Academy Faculty 2023
Audrey Axinn
Audrey Axinn’s sensitive and compelling performances on fortepiano and modern piano have been hailed by the Washington Post and others as a “truly admirable” and “Axinn is an artist…her touch is magical and the fluidity of her playing exceptional.” “Her musical sensibility reminds one of Landowska.”
Performance highlights on historical and modern pianos include solo performances and collaborations with artists including Monica Huggett, Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Eugene Fodor, Daniel Heifetz and Rufus Muller in venues including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Caramoor, and the Edinburgh International Festival.
Ms. Axinn teaches vocal and instrumental chamber music on fortepianos at The Juilliard School. She teaches collaborative piano and classroom courses at Mannes School of Music. Ms. Axinn has given master classes at prominent conservatories in China, the U.S., and Europe.
From 2018-21, Ms. Axinn served as Associate Dean and faculty at the Tianjin Juilliard School in China. Previously, she held the position of Assistant Dean at Mannes School of Music. Ms. Axinn holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts degree from The Juilliard School, as well as degrees from The Curtis Institute of Music, and The Manhattan School of Music. She also attended Sweelinck Conservatorium on a U.S. Fulbright and Netherland-America Foundation grant.
Maria Rose
Maria Rose, originally from the Netherlands, combines her experience as a fortepiano performer with her research as a musicologist. She has performed extensively as solo performer and in chamber music, and has a PhD in Musicology from New York University. Ms. Rose has performed chamber music with the Festetics String Quartet from Budapest, the Gamerith Trio in Austria, and with the Romanian violinist Vasile Beluska as the Mozart Fortepiano Duo. She has written many articles and lectured on piano performance practice. Her path-breaking research on early French piano music has led the way for a new generation of fortepianists focusing on previously unfamiliar repertoire.
Ms. Rose received her piano performance training in the Netherlands, London, and the U.S. She has recorded a wide range of repertoire on period instruments; including the complete Mozart Sonatas and Haydn Trios on an original Anton Walter piano in Austria. She received the Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society for her recording projects and a grant from the Netherland America Foundation. She is a Board member of the Historical Keyboard Society of North America and a Senior editor at RILM, the bibliographic database for music research, in New York City. Ms. Rose lives in the Catskill region, where she founded the Academy of Fortepiano Performance in Hunter, and hosts the International Fortepiano Salon with Yiheng Yang.
2010 - present
Andrew Willis
For several decades Andrew Willis has explored the historical development of keyboard instruments and their performance practice through the study, performance, and teaching of the widest possible repertoire. He participates frequently in conferences, festivals, and concert series and has held leadership roles for the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society and the Westfield Center for Historical Keyboard Studies, serving as a finals juror of the Westfield International Fortepiano Competition. Willis teaches performance and related subjects on instruments ranging from harpsichord to modern piano as a Professor in the School of Music at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where for over a decade he directed the biennial Focus on Piano Literature symposia. Willis holds degrees from Cornell University, Temple University, and The Curtis Institute of Music, where his mentors included Malcolm Bilson, Lambert Orkis, and Mieczyslaw Horszowski. He has recorded solo and ensemble music of three centuries on historically relevant pianos for the Albany, Bridge, Claves, Centaur, and CRI labels, collaborating with Malcolm Bilson and others in the first complete Beethoven sonata cycle recorded on historical pianos
2010 - present
In addition to numerous workshops in the vocal and dramatic performance of baroque music, Drew Minter has taught voice for the past ten years at Vassar College, where he also directs the Vassar Opera Workshop and conducts the Vassar Madrigal Singers. He has taught since 1989 at the Amherst Early Music Institute. In addition to an active singing career of his own, he teaches frequent masterclasses in opera and oratorio; in recent years these have taken place at Indiana University, Boston University, the University of Massachusetts, West Chester University and the Crittendon Opera Workshops in Boston.
Drew Minter
An insightful musician, Masayuki Maki plays the harpsichord and organ in public, and the clavichord at home. He studied at Indiana University, Queens College, Smarano Organ Academy, and received his doctoral degree from Stony Brook University. Mr. Maki's creative and insightful lecture demonstration “Applying Violin Bowing Expression on the Clavichord” was a highlight of AFP 2018. At the Academy he teaches clavichord and harpsichord, oversees the instrument repair and tuning, and directs the Technicians Workshop.
Masayuki Maki
Guest Artist 2023: Keiko Shichijo
Pianist and fortepianist Keiko Shichijo is a special voice in the world of both classical and contemporary music, as she combines a traditional Japanese sensitivity with a thorough knowledge of European historical performance practice. This leads to a unique vision, which is revealed in her feeling for the music, for the instruments, and for their underlying story.
Keiko is a prizewinner in many international competitions, including twice the International Early Music Competition (solo and duo) in Brugge, Belgium, the International Early Music Competition "A Tre" in Trossingen in Germany and the Minkoff Prize from the music publisher, Edition Minkoff, and has performed in many international festivals such as the festivals Printemps Des Arts (France), Utrecht Oude Muziek Festival (Holland), MA Festival (Belgium), La Folle Journée Tokyo (Japan), Canberra International Music Festival(AU).
Her violin/fortepiano duo with renowned violinist Cecilia Bernardini performs regularly throughout Europe. As a specialist in contemporary music Keiko has collaborated with many composers, including Helmut Lachenmann, Tom Johnson, Jürg Frey.
Keiko Shichijo performs worldwide, with both solo repertoire and chamber music and has many CD releases of major repertoire by Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Komitas, Satie, Tom Johnson and others.
Ms. Shichijo is a piano and fortepiano professor at the Fontys Academy for Music and Performing Arts Tilburg in the Netherlands, a piano professor at KASK & Conservatorium School of Arts Gent in Belgium. At the 2019 International Competition Musica Antiqua, category Fortepiano, Keiko served as a member of the jury.