Malcolm Bilson

Bilson has published several articles on the subject of interpreting late 18th- and early 19th-century compositions by Schubert, Mozart and Beethoven in Early Music and Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae.

In 2015 he was awarded the Hungarian Gold Cross of Merit for his contribution to Hungarian intellectual and cultural life.

In 2011, Bilson brought the first fortepiano competition to the United States. Coordinated under the Westfield Center, with a grant from the Mellon Foundation, the competition and academy were held at Cornell University; 31 young musicians from all over the world competed for prize money totaling $13,500.

Bilson retired in 2006 as a professor, remaining active as a teacher and performer.

In 1994 Bilson was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Bilson was promoted to full professor in 1976 and was appointed to the Frederick J. Whiton chair in 1990.

The career shift ultimately proved successful; Bilson developed a reputation as a fortepiano performer, gave concerts widely and was also invited to make recordings (see below). In 1974, he co-founded the Amadé Trio with violinist Sonya Monosoff and cellist John Hsu; the trio performed works on historical instruments.

Arguably the key event in Bilson's career was his first encounter with the fortepiano in 1969, which he narrated to Andrew Willis in a 2006 interview. Interested in historical pianos, he had bought a 19th-century instrument, described to him as a "Mozart piano," and was referred to Philip Belt, an expert on early pianos, about the possibility of restoring it:

Malcolm Bilson graduated from Bard College in 1957. He continued his studies with Grete Hinterhofer at the Akademie für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Berlin, later with Reine Gianoli at the École Normale de Musique de Paris. He studied for a doctoral degree at the University of Illinois with Stanley Fletcher and Webster Aitken, obtaining his DMA in 1968. At that time he was appointed as an assistant professor at Cornell.

Malcolm Bilson (born October 24, 1935) is an American pianist and musicologist specializing in 18th- and 19th-century music. He is the Frederick J. Whiton Professor of Music in Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Bilson is one of the foremost players and teachers of the fortepiano; this is the ancestor of the modern piano and was the instrument used in Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven's time.

Bilson was born in Los Angeles, California. His family was and is successful in the entertainment world: his father, George Bilson (1902–1981), was a British producer/writer/director of Ashkenazi Jewish extraction originally from Leeds, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and his older brother Bruce Bilson had a long and productive career as a film and television director; other relations (descendants of Bruce) are his nephew Danny Bilson and grandniece Rachel Bilson.