About us

December 4th, 2017, Marc Widuch (Faszinationpianola) posted his idea on the MMD (Mechanical Music Digest) in which he proposed holding an international meeting of like-minded people whose interests were in rolls. Many responded and applauded the idea. Marc’s dream of a global conference about piano rolls became a reality at Leipzig in July 2018.

A program group was formed to make GPRM become an international forum with biennial conferences and online Preludes twice a year. The conferences take place in different regions, hosted by a leading local university or institution to invite more and more people.

We aim at having all presentations and performances delivered during the conferences and online meetings (‘Preludes’) recorded, to share them with all participants and others.

In order to further improve our way of cooperation, we ask for feedback regularly.

The program group currently consists of :

Kumaran Arul (Stanford)

Kumaran Arul is a lecturer in music at Stanford University where he teaches piano, chamber music, and historical performance studies. He has performed widely as pianist throughout the United States and abroad to acclaim (described as a “formidable…superbly intelligent and sensitive musician” with “courage to venture far from everyone else’s beaten path”, Classical Voice, SF Examiner). Arul has been actively involved with research in performance practice specializing in historical recordings. His research areas include nineteenth and twentieth century performing traditions of Beethoven and the performance aesthetics of Heinrich Schenker. His scholarly work has been presented at conferences of the Association of Recorded Sound Collections, Cambridge University’s CMPCP, among others. Arul has been the recipient of grants for his research, including the Edison Fellowship in 2009 to work at the British Library. At Stanford University he was co-director with George Barth, of Reactions to the Record symposia that highlighted new directions in performance scholarship. In 2014, he initiated the Player Piano Program, which created a research center for piano rolls. It has focused on digitizing rolls to create a database and the development of applications to experience rolls online. The project, in conjunction with the Stanford Libraries and the Archive of Recorded Sound, has amassed over 20,000 rolls and a dozen player instruments to preserve and bring wider awareness to this important historical medium. His studies have been at the University of Michigan School of Music, Manhattan School of Music and Trinity College, Cambridge University.

Tamar Barzel (Stanford)

As the head of the Music Library and Archive of Recorded Sound Tamar manages a wonderful team, oversees the collections (print, audiovisual, digital, and archival), and provides support for research into music of all times and places. She has a research background in ethnomusicology with a focus on Jewish music and experimental music in New York City and Mexico City. Before arriving at Stanford Libraries in 2021 she taught at Wellesley College, Harvard, and NYU.

Sebastian Bausch (Bern)

Sebastian Bausch received his degrees for organ, harpsichord as well as modern and historical piano at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (Jörg-Andreas Bötticher, Wolfgang Zerer, Edoardo Torbianelli) and in Freiburg (Christoph Sischka). Since 2012 he is employed as a musicologist at the Bern Academy of the Arts HKB (Switzerland), and is pursuing a PhD on performance practices in 19th century piano playing with Kai Köpp. His research is heavily based on the empirical analysis of early recordings and reproducing piano rolls. He is an expert on the analysis and digitization of piano rolls. Sebastian Bausch is the assistant organist at the cathedral of St Gallen. He performs frequently as a soloist and chamber musician on both modern and historical keyboard instruments and is especially committed to employ the results of his research in his performances.

Neal Peres Da Costa (Sydney)

Neal Peres Da Costa is Associate Dean of Research and Professor of Historical Performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (SCM, University of Sydney). In 2023, he was appointed Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and is currently a member of the Australian Research Council College of Experts. A graduate of the University of Sydney, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (London), the City University (London), and the University of Leeds (UK), Neal is widely recognised as an authority on historical keyboard playing and performing practice. His highly-praised monograph Off the Record: Performing Practices in Romantic Piano Playing (New York: OUP, 2012) is considered worldwide as a ‘go to’ text. He co-edited (with Clive Brown and Kate Bennett-Wadsworth) the world-first scholarly performance editions of Brahms’ Sonatas for solo instrument and piano (Bärenreiter: 2015/16), co-authored (with Clive Brown) the online Performance Practice Commentary for Beethoven’s Sonatas for Piano and Violin (Bärenreiter: 2020), со-edited the book Creative Research in Music (Routledge: 2021), and has produced several thought-provoking book chapters on performance practice, most recently “The Case for Un-Notated Arpeggiation in Beethoven’s Compositions for or Involving the Piano” in Beethoven and the Piano: Philology, Context and Performance Practice ed. by Leonardo Miucci, Claudio Bacciagaluppi, Daniel Allenbach and Martin Skamletz and “Performing Practices for Romantic and Modern Repertoire” in The Oxford Handbook of Music.

Nathan Coy (Stanford)

Nathan Coy is Sound Archives Librarian at the Stanford University Libraries’ Archive of Recorded Sound (ARS) where he works to acquire, preserve, and help students and researchers access more than 400,000 sound recordings and 20,000 piano rolls. He holds degrees in music composition, audio production, and library science and previously spent a decade in applied preservation of sound recordings ranging from cylinders to born digital audio. Currently his work at ARS includes being part of the Stanford Piano Roll team working to preserve and document physical rolls.

Peter Phillips (Sydney)

Peter Phillips was introduced to piano rolls when he met Denis Condon in 1976. Together they constructed a Duo-Art vorsetzer used in 1978 to make a recording of Grieg’s Piano Concerto played by Percy Grainger with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. In 1979, Peter began digitizing piano rolls using equipment he had designed for the task, thereby creating a library of music for his Ampico. He is regarded as a pioneer in this field. In 2011, using newly constructed equipment, Peter resumed his roll digitizing activities, and in early 2013, Robert Mitchell, now custodian of the Condon roll collection asked Peter to digitise the collection, a task that took over 18 months. Later that year Peter met Dr Neal Peres Da Costa, whose book Off The Record described the author’s use of reproducing piano rolls in his research into 19th C performance practice. This meeting led to Peter being accepted as a PhD candidate at Sydney University, supervised by Peres Da Costa. He completed his thesis in 2017 titled “Piano Rolls and Contemporary Player Pianos: The Catalogues, Technologies, Archiving and Accessibility”. Peter has since given presentations and piano roll recitals at a range of venues, including Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Stanford, Bern, Cornell and Adelaide universities. He shares his work with researchers from around the world.

Martin Skamletz (Bern)

Born 1970 in Austria, Studies of Music Theory and Flute in Vienna, Traverso in Brussels, Composition in Feldkirch.
Since 2007 at Hochschule der Künste Bern: Head of Institut Interpretation and Lecturer Music Theory.
2006-2022 Professor of Music Theory and Performance Practice at the Vorarlberg State Conservatory in Feldkirch.
2006-2008 Lecturer in music theory at the Trossingen University of Music.
1997-2007 Lecturer and head of music theory for the Swiss Music Pedagogical Association at the Basel Free Music School.

Marc Widuch (Munich)

Marc Widuch has long been in business dealing with golden era pianos, reproducing pianos and rolls. Marc loves the music, the history and he regards piano roll recordings as an important resource for musicians, researchers and for anyone interested in piano music. In 2017, Marc launched the idea of a Global Piano Roll Meeting, resulting in the first meeting in Leipzig (2018) and the second one in Bern/Seewen, (2022) as well as the coming one in Sydney (2024). His collection of over 120 pianos and thousands of rolls includes many historic art-case and reproducing pianos. He formed an association with Daniel Heil to offer roll digitisation services with the HKB Bern scanner and to produce reprint rolls. As a Coach and author he has been providing coaching and consulting to companies and individuals for more than 25 years. Born in 1968 in Hamburg, Marc today runs a business called Faszinationpianola / iDMP Munich in Germany where he lives with his wife and family.