The Piano Performance Museum
at the Catskill Mountain Foundation
Hunter, New York
The Academy of Fortepiano Performance originated with the Steven E. Greenstein Collection of pianos in Hunter, New York, which forms the core of the Piano Performance Museum. The Museum is an unparalleled hands-on resource for the rediscovery of the piano in music history, with special emphasis on its American tradition. The goal of the museum is to reach the international community of performing artists, researchers, educators and students.
The faculty members of AFP supplement the collection with their own instruments, resulting in a large number of historical instruments and replicas that are available to the students. All of the instruments are unique and fragile in their own way and their moving, tuning, and maintenance are indispensable to our goal of showing the benefits and revelations of playing on period instruments. The craftsmen who built early pianos were real artists with a lot of technical knowledge that has faded in time. Behind every successful fortepiano performance hides a brilliant technician who has learned from historical records how to treat the pianos properly.
Maki Masuyaki is our faculty technician, who oversees the maintenance and handling of all our instruments. His knowledge of clavichords, harpsichords, and early pianos is an essential part of the Academy, in addition to Steven Greenstein of the Piano Performance Museum and other visiting technicians and builders who help with the instruments.