Events

Mar 23

For over 600 years, stringed keyboard instruments have served as repositories for human imagination, science, technology, craft, artistry, and music. They are admired for their stature – and oftentimes stunning beauty – alongside their ability to play both melody and harmony. Keyboard innovation has continuously expanded throughout the world, throughout time.



Opening in March 2024, the special exhibition “High Strung: Five Centuries of Stringed Keyboard Instruments” will explore the form, function and development of keyboard instruments from early harpsichords to the modern piano. The special exhibition brings together nearly 20 keyboard instruments from the NMM’s collections - some of which have never before been on exhibit.



Instruments that will be on display include:


• An octave virginal (NMM 4660), from the same workshop as the NMM’s Neapolitan harpsichord, c.1530 (NMM 14408)

• A highly decorated harpsichord by Andreas Ruckers, 1643 (NMM 10000)

• Harpsichord by Nicolas Dufour, 1683 (NMM 5943, pictured below), made in Paris in a native style that fell from popularity by the first decade of the 18th century

• French grand piano, Clavecin à marteaux, (harpsichord with hammers) by Louis Bas (NMM 4653) from 1781. This instrument, the earliest surviving French grand piano, is exceptional, retaining much of its original action parts

• Downward-striking piano by Nanette Streicher und Sohn (NMM 10298), and a small trapezoid hammer instrument by Gottfried Maucher (NMM 4570) – an example of a lesser-known instrument type, similar to the tangentenflugel by Späth and Schmahl, built c.1784 (NMM 4145), which was once a favorite instrument type of Mozart

• Grand piano by Erard (NMM 5984) and Chickering & Sons (NMM 5413), built at a time in which America led the way in piano technology, not only with grand pianos, but also with the large ”square” pianos by makers such as William Knabe & Company (NMM 14447)



“High Strung: Five Centuries of Stringed Keyboard Instruments” will open to the public on March 23, 2024 in the NMM’s Jason & Betsy Groves Special Exhibition Gallery. It will remain open through the calendar year. Support for the exhibition is provided by generous grants from the Clayton and Odessa Lang Ofstad Foundation and the City of Vermillion, SD.

Fee: $Included with Museum Admission

Apr 01

Visit the SD Discovery Center in Pierre as they help celebrate Month of the Military Child. Military youth and families receive free admission throughout the month of April. Learn more at https://sd-discovery.org.

Apr 14

Marcia Hadjimarkos performs, records, and teaches on a variety of keyboards instruments from the earliest Florentine piano to its modern counterpart, with particular interest in clavichords and historic pianos both grand and square. An Oregon native, she now lives in France, and studied the fortepiano with Jos Van Immerseel at the Paris Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique after earning degrees in piano performance and French from the. University of Iowa.

Her performances are described as “imaginatively realized, full-blooded, and loving”, “brilliantly intelligent”, and “dynamic, free, and powerfully shaped”. She has played at the International Piano Festival in La Roque d’Anthéron, La Folle Journée de Nantes, the Sablé Festival, l’Arsenal de Metz, the National Music Museum, Rencontres Internationales Harmoniques, the Nordic Historical Keyboard Festival, the Cobbe, Finchcocks, and Russell Collections, the San Diego Early Music Society, Morningside College…Her recordings of Mozart Sonatas and Rondos, Haydn Sonatas, Character Pieces by C.P.E. Bach, Haydn songs & cantatas with Emma Kirkby, Viennese music with Hugo Reyne (czakan), and Schubert Dances and Sonata, have been enthusiastically received, and earned various awards including a Diapason d’Or.

Marcia enjoys working with actors and singers to co-create programs that combine words and music, such as ‘The Intimate Mozart’ (based on the Mozart family letters), ‘Entre Deux Feux’ (commemorating popular and art songs of the World War I era), and ‘Lamartine Forever’ (centered on the Romantic poet’s life and works). She plays the four-hand and two-keyboard repertoires with Brice Pauset and is a member of L’Académie des Cosmopolites ensemble. She gives frequent master classes on historic pianos and clavichords in conservatories, museums, universities, and festivals.

In the coming months she will be releasing an album of minimalist music played on a late 19th century Steinway, and a recording of solo and chamber works by Hélène de Montgeroult on an 1817 square piano, with mezzo-soprano Beth Taylor and violinist Nicolas Mazzoleni.

This concert will be livestreamed at: https://www.nmmusd.org/nmm-live-video

Fee: $Free with Museum Admission