EFM association
EFM the European Fortepiano Museum/Academy was founded by 6 professional musicians and Restorer Pooya Radbon but also historical keyboard collectors whose like-mindedness, passion and knowledge in various subjects related to music and early keyboards brought them together.
With having the intention to do conservate, restore and let a larger number of enthusiastic musicians, being professionals or amateurs, old or young, being in the region of Basel (mecca of early music!) or far away using the internet. From the great and unique collection being available offering each year several historical keyboards from the deads list (unrestored) to playing condition for the special audience worldwide.
This association is non-governmental and can only continue through sponsorship of those who appreciate the great efforts (mostly unpaid or little paid) services and availability of 90 unique historical keyboards.
Our Staff members
Chairman of the Board & Faculty member
Jacques Ogg
Historical keyboardist Jacques Ogg taught harpsichord at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. A native of Maastricht in the Netherlands, he began taking harpsichord lessons there with Anneke Uittenbosch. In 1970 he went on to study with Gustav Leonhardt at the Amsterdam Conservatory, graduating in 1974. Jacques Ogg's current activities include solo concerts on harpsichord and fortepiano, duo concerts with flautist Wilbert Hazelzet, and a trio with Jaap ter Linden [and?]. He has been a member of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and has performed regularly with Concerto Palatino. He is frequently invited for masterclasses in cities around the world, including Curitiba (Brazil), Vancouver (Canada), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Mateus (Portugal), and Salamanca (Spain), as well as in Krakow (Poland), Prague, and Budapest.
He was invited as a juror in competitions such as Bach Wettbewerb (Leipzig), Prague Spring [Czech Republic?], and the Jurow Competition (USA). Jacques Ogg is artistic director of the Lyra Baroque Orchestra in Minneapolis–Saint Paul (USA) and chairman of the board of the European Fortepiano Museum/Academy.
Treasurer of the association
Dieter Glös
University degree in Dresden and Halle as cantor / organist in the subjects: piano, organ, improvisation, counterpoint, harmony, ear training, music theory, morphology, singing, conducting, choral conducting, score reading and organ building.
After studying private organ studies with Hans Otto at the great Silbermann organ in Freiberg Cathedral.
Intensive study of the early music performance practice and extensive study of the sources. Participation in several seminars Interpretation of Early Music.
From 1978 to 2012 cantor and organist at the Gothic St. Mary's Church in Angermünde and the church district Uckermark. Promoter and organizer of the annual since 1979 Angermünder summer concerts in the Marienkirche with choral, orchestral, chamber and organ concerts.Concert activity at home and abroad. Organ concert tours have taken him to Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Poland, France, Japan, Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil.Television and radio recordings at the Wagner organ. For broadcasting the Romansh and German-speaking Switzerland, he played a compositions from the 20th century.CD recordings on the Baroque organ in Angermünde:- Co-production Japan Tokyo / SFB Berlin- European Orgellandschaften Capriccio- Christmas organ music for Christnacht- Motet2000 Dieter Glös Award for his commitment to the Culture Prize of the City Angermünde.2010 Chairman and Head of Orgelakademie Uckermark-Western Pomerania.
Artistic director, Curator and Restorer
Pooya Radbon
Pooya Radbon was born in Tehran, where he learned to play the violin, mostly interested in classical music prior to 1850. After discovering the ''informed performance practice'' mostly from Nicolaus Harnoncourt, he passionately dedicated his whole life to it so far. He formed the first early music ensemble in Iran, giving concerts and a seminar on HIP at Tehran University. After moving to Bremen (HfK), he studied the baroque violin with Thomas Albert and Stephanie Paulet and participated regularly in masterclasses given by Enrico Onofri. He also had lessons with Sigiswald Kuijken and Elizabeth Wallfisch, with whom he collaborated on various projects, including several radio broadcasts and CD recordings, and appeared as soloist with her and Jap ter Linden. With the Wallfisch Band, they performed concerts in France, the Netherlands, and Germany.
He also performed under the direction of Bruno Weil, Wim Becu, Alfredo Bernardini, Detlef Bratschke and Thomas Albert. From the beginning of his residency in Germany, he started to collect fortepianos from the eighteenth century due to his love for Mozart’s music. Within a decade he had built one of the world’s largest and finest fortepiano collections, consisting of instruments from the early and late Classical period but also numerous Romantic pianos. Although largely self-taught, he learned techniques of restoration from master woodworkers and had the privilege of consulting Christopher Clarke on most restoration projects for more than 1000 hours.
Pooya Radbon endeavors to save the most historically significant keyboard instruments (including harpsichords, clavichords, pantalons, tangent pianos, and spinets) from exclusively private ownership, making them available not only to local musicians but to the wider world through social media. On these platforms he enjoys creating excitement and inspiring keyboardists to learn more about the qualities of historical instruments and the lesser-known repertoire. In 2020 he founded the EFM (European Fortepiano Museum/Academy), the aim of which is to create a center for early keyboard instruments with the help of enthusiasts at a high level, inviting fine historical keyboardists from around the world to give lecture-recitals, concerts and masterclasses and to broadcast videos of exquisite historical keyboard instruments.
In addition to his activities as a professional restorer., he continues performing chamber music from the Baroque and Classical periods.
Honorary Artistic director & Faculty member
Michael Tsalka
Early keyboard performer and concert pianist Michael Tsalka has won numerous prizes in Europe, the U.S.A., the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America. Tsalka is a versatile musician, who performs solo and chamber music repertoire from the early Baroque era to our days. He was born in Tel-Aviv, Israel. After studies in Israel, Germany and Italy, he graduated in 2008 from Temple University (U.S.A) with a D.M.A. in Piano Performance and an M.M. in Early Keyboard Performance and Chamber Music. His mentors included Lambert Orkis, Joyce Lindorff, Harvey Wedeen, as well as Dario di Rosa, Klaus Schilde, Malcolm Bilson, David Shemer, and Charles Rosen.
Dr. Tsalka maintains a busy concert schedule, performing circa 110 concerts a year worldwide. Recent engagements include the Forbidden City Hall in Beijing, Bellas Artes Theater in Mexico City, the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, St. Denis Festival in Paris, Beethoven House in Bonn, Tokyo’s City Opera, the Winspear Centre in Edmonton, National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Volksbuehne in Berlin, the Jerusalem Music Center, the Mozarteum in Salzburg, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the ElbPhilharmonie in Hamburg, plus live performances for radio/television stations around the globe (Chicago, Hong Kong, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Munich, St. Petersburg, Beijing, Stockholm, Helsinki, Auckland, St. Louis, Amsterdam, Brussels, Geneva, London, Sydney).
Michael Tsalka has recorded twenty-seven critically acclaimed CDs for labels such as NAXOS, Grand Piano (HK), Paladino (Vienna), Brilliant Classics (Amsterdam), IMI (Tel-Aviv), Sheva Collection (London/Milano), Wirripang (Sydney), and Ljud & Bild (Stockholm). In November 2020, Grand Piano/Naxos released Mozartiana, a tribute to the famous composer, recorded on a historical pantalon and a tangentenfluegel from the Pooya Radbon Collection. In early 2021, NAXOS included his/Alon Sariel's recording of Beethoven’s mandolin and fortepiano works for their Complete Beethoven Edition.
He has performed as soloist with numerous orchestras, among them The Sydney Consort (Australia), the University of Birmingham Chamber Orchestra (U.K.), Temple University Chamber Orchestra (Philadelphia, U.S.A.), Krasnoyarsk Chamber Orchestra (Russia), Guatemala Symphony Orchestra, Musica Raritana (New Jersey, U.S.A.), Silvestre Revueltas Chamber Orchestra (Guanajuato, Mexico), St. Louis’ City Orchestra (U.S.A.), Hermitage Festival Orchestra (St. Petersburg, Russia), Saarbruecken Symphony Orchestra (Germany), Baroque Camerata (Kaohsiung, Taiwan), Filharmonica Orchestra (Manila, Philippines), and ThoroughBass (Sydney). Dr. Tsalka has also collaborated with important early music specialists such as Lambert Orkis, Cynthia Roberts, Peter Sykes, and Christopher Hogwood.
In addition, Dr. Michael Tsalka has presented over 140 master classes in academic institutions in all continents. Currently, he heads the Keyboard Department at the Vanke Meisha Arts Academy in Shenzhen, China, and the Chair of the VMAA Performing Arts Department. He has been artist-in-residence at the Nelson Center for Musical Arts in NZ (2018, 2020).
Faculty member
Aapo Häkkinen
Aapo Häkkinen began his musical education as a chorister at Helsinki Cathedral. He took up the harpsichord at the age of thirteen, studying with Elina Mustonen and Olli Porthan (organ) at the Sibelius Academy. From 1995 to 1998 he studied with Bob van Asperen at the Amsterdam Sweelinck Conservatory and from 1996 to 2000 with Pierre Hantaï in Paris, and also enjoyed the generous guidance and encouragement of Gustav Leonhardt. Immediately after obtaining his diploma in 1998, he won second prize and the VRT prize at the Bruges Harpsichord Competition. He was also awarded the Norddeutscher Rundfunk special prize Musikpreis 1997 for his interpretations of Italian music.
Aapo Häkkinen has appeared as soloist and conductor in most European countries, in Turkey, Israel, Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, the USA, Brazil, and Mexico.
Photo: Marco Borggreve
He has recorded for the labels Aeolus, Alba, Avie, Cantus, Deux-Elles, Naxos, and Ondine. A frequent guest on both radio and television, he hosts his own programme on Classic FM in Finland. Besides the harpsichord, Aapo Häkkinen regularly performs on the organ, on the clavichord, and on the fortepiano. He teaches at the Sibelius Academy and at international masterclasses. He has been Artistic Director of the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra since 2003.
Faculty member
Aline Zylberajch-Gester
A graduate of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, Paris, and of the New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, Aline Zylberajch started her career as a harpsichordist. She contributed to the early productions of ensembles such as La Chapelle Royale, Les Musiciens du Louvre and Le Parlement de Musique, with which she performed numerous operas and oratorios.
Later, her interest in the music of the late 18th century led her naturally to an intensive involvement in the performance practice of the early piano, discovering at the same time the amazing variety of keyboard instruments that flourished all over Europe. This period, which also saw the increasing popularity of duos, trios and quartets with obbligato keyboard opened up a whole new field of research into chamber music, and new happy musical encounters. One of her other addictions is playing vocal music, from early Baroque songs to Lieder evenings, and listening to the many ways this flows through to keyboard repertoire.
Sharing through teaching has always been an important part of her musical life. As a harpsichord teacher at the Academie Supérieure de Musique in Strasbourg, she has been invited for recitals and interpretation Masters classes in France, Switzerland, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Poland, Germany, Mexico, Australia & Japan. Since 2011 she has been teaching pedagogy of the harpsichord at the Pedagogy Department of Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique, Paris.
She is a founding member and since 2020 appointed chairwoman of “Clavecin en France” society.
Her recordings have received much praise in Diapason, Classica, Gramophone, Early Music Review, Répertoire, le Monde de la Musique, etc.
Faculty member
Martin Gester
Martin Gester’s artistic personality has been fashioned through his constant acute curiosity and exposure to a great number of neglected masterpieces. That personality infuses his profoundly original approach to mainstream repertoire, whether at the head of his ensemble, as a guest conductor, or a soloist in chamber music.
Using his own personal style, he revives the ideal of the Baroque artist: open-minded, multifaceted and humanist. To this end, he draws on his dual literary and musical training (instrumental, organ and harpsichord, and vocal); his passion for history and attentiveness to oral traditions; his fondness for dance and theatre; and his special interest in restoring the links between cultures and disciplines which are customarily separated. In 1990, he founded Le Parlement de Musique in Strasbourg. It is a flexibly-sized ensemble created to suit his tastes, and is both a place for experimentation and a dissemination tool. At that time, Martin Gester had already had years of literary and musical studies behind him. By turns singer in polyphonic groups, performer and improviser (aside from the organ, he studied the piano and the harpsichord), choirmaster, musicologist and teacher (of both Classics and music), he has played many repertoires ranging over four centuries. His early passion for Renaissance polyphony certainly played its role in
subsequently refocusing his activity on the art of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, but he also admits to a marked penchant for Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and bel canto opera until Rossini. .
Faculty member
Heidi Tsai
Heidi Tsai, equally virtuosic in harpsichord, fortepiano and piano, performs regularly on all three instruments. Her versatile musicality brings life to different genres of repertoire from 17th to 21st centuries. She has been featured as a soloist on both the fortepiano and the harpsichord in Europe and the United States. In an orchestral setting, she has collaborated with Christian Zacharias, Giovanni Antonini, Leonard Slatkin, and Robert King, Stanley Ritchie, and Nigel North. Ms. Tsai has been invited to play in major concert series and music festivals throughout the United States, Central America, Asia and Europe. Her live performance of the Goldberg Variations received warm and enthusiastic feedback from the audiences, and was recorded and broadcasted by Catalunya Música. She has also been invited and performed on the television program ‘El Temps del Picó’ (Barcelona). As a musician, Heidi was also featured twice on the magazine ‘Metropolitan’ in Barcelona. In addition to performing solo recitals and appearing with orchestras, Ms. Tsai is frequently sought after as a sensitive and initiating chamber and continuo player. Heidi Tsai is also the co-founder and artistic director of the early music group Barcelona Barroc, their most recent project, Chiaoscuro, involved 8 musicians, a tour in Spain, and a finished recording. In 2018, her solo fortepiano recording made its debut under the recording label b# Productions in Berlin, it had received numerous warm reviews in Germany and Japan.
She has taught both piano and harpsichord at Boston University, Boston Conservatory, Arizona State University and Indiana University. From 2002-2019, Heidi Tsai has been on the faculty in the early music department at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC) in Barcelona, and the Conservatoire in Pau, France.
Auditor of the EFM association
Johannes Koch
Johannes Koch, born in 1967 in the Lower Rhine region, has been interested in the sound and construction of historical keyboard instruments since his youth. Professionally, he decided to study law and holds a doctorate in law. Besides his profession, his passion is still playing the piano. After having built a clavichord and a harpsichord, he is concerned with original historical instruments and owns meanwhile a small collection of about 10 square and grand pianos, just about as much as can be hosted in a private home. Since he is also not untalented in craftsmanship, his instruments are all playable (YouTube-Channel "Jan Kappes")and mostly restored by himself.
Auditor of the EFM association
Peter Karsten
Peter Karsten, born 24.7.1961, piano lessons from the age of 14, organ lessons in the Gethsemane Church in Berlin since 1978 (at the age of 17), wanted to become an organ builder, but then trained in civil engineering and studies. Hobby and profession merged with his engineering office for acoustics (founded in 1996, http://akustik-analyse.de/), main focus on building and room acoustics as well as the interaction of the acoustics of the instruments with their respective place of installation, intensive engagement with metrologically supported analysis of ageing processes in historical instruments and their reproduction in copies.
For the past 30 years, he has been building up his own collection of musical instruments (http://akustik-analyse.de/musikinstrumenten-museum) with a focus on historical guitars (original instruments from around 1630) and keyboard instruments (original instruments from around 1600) and their technical development from their beginnings to the present day. The oldest instrument is a harp from the 16th century, the newest instrument is from 2021.
GET IN TOUCH:
Email: info@efm-fortepiano.org
Breslauerstr. 30
79739 Schwörstadt
Germany
© 2021 by EFM team.
CONTACT US: