“I am very grateful to the Yamaha Corporation and the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz for introducing our school to this innovation in distance learning. The technology is of precision that the human ear could hardly notice any loss in the transfer, states Kevin Kenner, Associate Professor of the Keyboard Performance Department. “This technology not only helps us teach effectively in the middle of a pandemic, but it also offers schools who invest in this technology an exciting opportunity to eradicate geographical barriers and teach students all around the globe as if they were literally sitting next to us in our private studios.”
“At the core of the Disklavier is a high precision, high-resolution recording and playback system that means a pianist may use it locally to assess their own playing by recording, then sit in the hall as an audience member,” states Shana Kirk, Education Technology Consultant Disklavier Education Network, Yamaha Corporation of America. “We LOVED visiting the campus and meeting all the faculty and staff. It's always special to see an artist light up with excitement upon seeing the Disklavier in action, but it was especially wonderful to see the professors enjoy teaching students thousands of miles away.”
French Forbes, Team Lead, Institutional Sales Manager, Southeastern Region
Yamaha Corporation of America stated: “By one piano simply calling another you can connect two or more pianos with the capture of all the nuances of key and pedal movement live without delay. Using a platform like Zoom, the professors can see and interact with the student and see both on video and the actual keys moving right before them—mistakes and perfection.”
Members of the Frost keyboard performance faculty participating in the week-long series of masterclasses included Professor and Chair Santiago Rodriguez and Associate Professors Naoko Takao, Tian Ying, and Kevin Kenner. Ten students from the Academy of Music in Bydgoszcz were selected and studied works by Rachmaninov, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Clementi, Chopin, Ravel, Brahms, Prokofiev and Messiaen.
