Kenneth Drake - Pianist

Kenneth Drake was an early exponent of interpreting music of the classic period on early pianos.  Using English Broadwoods and a copy of an Anton Walter fortepiano, as well as the modern piano, he has played recitals and conducted workshops for colleges and universities, the Cambridge Early Music Society, the Smithsonian, the Midwest Historic Keyboard Society, the Michigan Mozartfest, the Taipei National University of the Arts, and National Conventions of Music Teachers National Association.  Mr. Drake is professor emeritus in the School of Music of the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, having taught previously at the University of Evansville (Indiana) and Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa.  He is the author of two books, The Beethoven Sonatas as He Played and Taught Them, his doctoral thesis, and The Beethoven Sonatas and the Creative Experience, published by Indiana University Press.