A new harpsichord joined the Northwestern instrumental family Friday, making it the seventh of its kind in the School of Music.
The $25,000 harpsichord — a plucked-string keyboard instrument that was a precursor to the piano — was ordered from Paul Y. Irvin, a distinguished maker of early keyboard instruments. The instrument will be housed in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall.
To welcome the instrument to its new home, Exposure, a group of student musicians and composers from NU and Chicago, will hold a free concert at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. The concert will be held at the Dittmar Memorial Gallery, located on the main floor of Norris University Center. Exposure will use the harpsichord to play several contemporary musical pieces composed by NU music students and faculty.
“We thought (the concert) would be a great opportunity for our composers to write music especially designed for the harpsichord,” said Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody, a Weinberg junior.
The School of Music had to wait five years to receive the harpsichord because it decided to purchase it from Irvin, a well-known early instrument maker in Northbrook, Ill.
Due to Irvin’s popularity, the School of Music was placed on a waiting list for four years before Irvin began building the instrument for NU.
The actual building of the harpsichord took one year to complete, said Ken Eschete, NU’s keyboard and maintenance manager.
“You have to order them well in advance because they are produced entirely by hand,” Eschete said.
Although the School of Music already had six harpsichords on campus, it decided to purchase an additional one because it needed a newer and more appropriate instrument for concerts, Eschete said.
“We’ve been waiting for some time to have an instrument like this because we will be able to use it in ways we haven’t been able to before,” he said.
The harpsichord previously housed at Pick-Staiger is a single-manual instrument and has only one set of keys. The new harpsichord is a double-manual instrument with two sets of keys stacked on top of each other. This allows the player to quickly change from one sound to another without stopping to switch keyboards.
The older harpsichord, from Pick-Staiger, will be moved to Lutkin Hall, where it will still be accessible to students because many of them hold recitals there, said music performance Prof. Stephen Alltop, who specializes in chapel music.
“We’re sort of experiencing a ripple effect by the purchase of the harpsichord,” he said. “We’re just better off all-around.”
Besides benefiting the nine students who study the harpsichord at the School of Music, the harpsichord will also help attract renowned concert artists who wish to perform on stage with the harpsichord at Pick-Staiger, Eschete said.
“Up until now, we’ve had to rent to use an instrument like this in Pick-Staiger,” he said. “Now that we have one, we can attract concert artists who are looking for a place to play.”
Music students, especially those who study the harpsichord, said they are also excited about the arrival of a new instrument and are looking forward to playing on it.
“There really weren’t that many (harpsichords) to go around and this one will get us used to playing in Pick-Staiger,” said Music sophomore Kristin Figard, who is a harpsichord management and maintenance ad-hoc major. “It’s really fun to work with an instrument where everything works at a top-notch quality.”
Reach Allan Madrid at [email protected].
