Andrew Willis, pianist

photo Pianist Andrew Willis performs in the United States and abroad on pianos of every period. His recordings include the “Hammerklavier” and other Beethoven sonatas for Claves, as part of the first Beethoven sonata cycle on period instruments, a project directed by Malcolm Bilson and presented in concert at New York, Utrecht, Florence, and Palermo.  His recording of early German lieder cycles on period instruments with Georgine Resick, soprano, has just been released by Bridge Records under the title "Visions Intérieures."  His recordings of Schubert lieder and Rossini songs with soprano Julianne Baird are available on Vox, Newport Classics, and Albany records, and he has recorded music of Rochberg, Schickele, Ibert, and others with flutist Sue Ann Kahn.

Hear Andrew Willis play Beethoven's Sonata Op. 106, Scherzo

Willis appears frequently with period-instrument ensembles such as the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, the Mozart Society of Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Classical Symphony, the Magnolia Baroque Festival, and the Apollo Ensemble, and he is a past President of the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society. At the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where he is Professor of Music, he performs on keyboard instruments ranging from harpsichord to modern piano.

In 2003, Andrew Willis took over leadership of the highly praised biennial symposium known as the UNCG Focus on Piano Literature.   For the 2000 Focus on Contemporary Composers, he commissioned and premiered Martin Amlin's Sonata No. 7 , composed in 1999.  His solo recording of this sonata, together with Amlin's Sonata No. 6, Eight Variations, and Five Preludes, Copland's Four Piano Blues, and Irving Fine's Music for Piano, was recently released by Albany Records as Troy 674.

Hear Andrew Willis play Amlin's South End Rag

In 2005, Andrew Willis toured China presenting works of American, Chinese, and Chinese-American composers, performing and teaching under the auspices of the Central Conservatory in Beijing and the Conservatories of Shenyang, Dalian, Xi'an, and Chengdu.

Willis's personal collection of keyboard instruments includes an 1841 Bösendorfer 6.5-octave grand piano, an 1848 Pleyel 6.5-octave grand piano, and a 1906 Henry F. Miller concert grand.  Recent seasons saw his debut recital on the Pleyel for Music for a Great Space in Greensboro, as well as performances on an 1850's Broadwood at Strathmore Hall Arts Center in North Bethesda, Maryland, and inaugural recitals on a restored 1800 Joseph Schmid piano for the Harpsichord Center of Los Angeles and a new Regier Walter-model piano at Wake Forest University.

Andrew Willis participates regularly  in scholarly conferences involving performance topics.  In fall 2002 he was a coach/performer at the conference Beyond Notation:  The Performance and Pedagogy of Improvisation in Mozart’s Time at the University of Michigan, and in May 2003 his recital on the 1815 Thÿm fortepiano keynoted the conference, "Four Centuries of Great Keyboard Instruments: What They Tell Us," the first joint meeting of the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society, the Midwestern Historical Society,  and the Western Early Keyboard Association, at the National Music Museum. 

Before receiving the D.M.A. in Historical Performance from Cornell University, where he studied fortepiano with Malcolm Bilson, Willis studied piano at The Curtis Institute of Music with Mieczyslaw Horszowski and at Temple University with George Sementovsky and Lambert Orkis. For many years, he participated in the musical life of Philadelphia, serving as keyboardist of The Philadelphia Orchestra for several seasons. Before joining the UNCG faculty in 1994, he had taught at Cornell, Syracuse, and Temple universities, and at Swarthmore and Franklin & Marshall colleges.

Dr. Willis's fall 2007 piano literature students created webpage reports on various early keyboard composers, which may be viewed here.

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