A New Performance Space for Pianoforte Foundation; A Great Recital by Kimiko Ishizaka Tonight at 7:30

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This afternoon (Saturday, October 26) I stopped by to take a look at the handsome new home for the Pianoforte Foundation.  The Foundation has moved from their former quarters in the Fine Arts Annex, to a three story, 11,000 square foot building at 1335 South Michigan, rehabbed by Neil Sheehan of Sheehan Partners Architects.

The first floor is PianoForte Chicago, a retail piano store opened in 2004 by Thomas Zoells, who the next year established the PianoForte Foundation, �dedicated to preserving and promoting the art of the piano in Chicago and creating a vibrant piano community that closely connects audiences and artists.� 

On the second floor at 1335 are offices, a kitchen, a series of practice rooms, and the aforementioned 100 seat performance space, a comfortable, acoustically alive environment which sounded good to me, although I have to admit mechanical or plumbing sounds sometimes intruded into the room at a low level.

I was taking pictures of the hall when a young woman came in, sat down at the Fazioli piano, and began to play Bach.  She was practicing the Well-Tempered Clavier in a romantic, utterly musical performance, full of color and life, which carried over to the Chopin preludes, and selections from the etudes, Op. 10, that came next.  I was having the extreme good fortune of stumbling onto the rehearsal of pianist Kimiko Ishizaka for her recital at 7:30 p.m. tonight.  If you can make it, do so.  You won't regret it.  She's an absolutely marvelous performer.  The recital is free, and if you come early, at 7:00 p.m., you can hear a discussion about Ishizaka's Open-Source Bach project.

If you can't make it, you can watch a live broadcoast of the concert via Google Hangouts.  I haven't quite figured out exactly how it works, myself, but you can check it out for yourself here.