Meadows Piano: The Well-Tempered Clavier

Fifteen piano faculty and students at SMU’s Meadows School of the Arts will join together for a complete performance of Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, a work regarded as the foundation of western classical music. The two-part concert will be held at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 1 and Monday, April 5 in Caruth Auditorium in the Owen Arts Center, 6101 Bishop Blvd. on the SMU campus. Admission is free.

“Written in 1722, the 48 Preludes and Fugues that make up The Well-Tempered Clavier pushed compositional and technical boundaries, and still today continue to challenge performers and inspire composers,” said noted pianist and faculty member Alessio Bax, organizer of the concert. “The work is universally considered not only a musical milestone of unmatched importance, but also a great achievement of the human mind. For our concert, the performers will play two modern pianos, tuned in a historic temperament to highlight the 24 different tonalities and how Bach used them in each prelude and fugue.”

The pianists (in alphabetical order) are as follows:

Alessio Bax
Kristin Center
Lucille Chung
Marta Espinós
Liudmila Georgievskaya
Paméla Hurtado
David Karp
Carol Leone
Catharine Lysinger
Eldred Marshall
Hannah Payne
Alberto Peña
Thomas Schwan
Anna Starzec
Saule Tlenchiyeva