With 160 instruments, several of which are the last of their kind in the world, WAAPA’s free Piano Encounters sessions invite visitors to experience and hear performances on these historic instruments housed within their purpose-built Piano Salon at City Campus.
Dating from 1736 to 1874, the collection covers the entire history of keyboard instruments, from the clavicord and harpsicord to the modern piano. It includes a one of Australia’s earliest surviving pianos, built in London in 1780 by Arnold Frederick Beck and arriving aboard HMAS Sirius, as well as a Continental square piano, one of very few eighteenth century pianos that remain across the globe.
The flagship collection can be browsed online on the Historic Pianos website, or better yet, experienced in person. The next Piano Encounters event will be held on Friday, September 18 with Izaac Masters on the Graf Fortepiano, which dates back to 1824. The final Piano Encounters performance of the year will be on Friday, November 6, with Stewart Smith playing on the Kirkman Harpsicord, an instrument made in 1786.
The Steward Symonds Keyboard Instrument Collection was gifted to WAAPA in 2016 by Dr Symonds, who had been collecting since the late 1960s. Dr Symonds donated his historic pianos to ECU/WAAPA after storage capacity was exceeded at his Sydney home.
A similar gift was received in 2020 from Mr David Forward of Adelaide, bringing WAAPA’s total collection up to 160 instruments.
From the collection, the Centre for Keyboard Heritage and Performance Research was founded, in which WAAPA seeks to establish itself as a institution with piano conservation, restoration, and maintenance, performance and education at its heart. Through growing, preserving and displaying the collection, WAAPA has been positioned as a world-leading hub for piano scholarship.
Visitors can see these pianos in action throughout WAAPA’s performance program, which concludes on Thursday, November 19. Piano Encounters 4 takes places at the Piano Salon on Friday, September 18. Tickets are open for registration on Friday, September 4, from boxoffice.waapa.ecu.edu.au.
