Gilles Vonsattel is in the midst of a multi-year journey through one of the most challenging and important catalogs in the classical music canon.

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The professor of piano in the Department of Music and Dance is traveling from coast to coast, performing all 32 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas in a series of concerts at venues in New York and California.

This coming year, he will also present a set of free concerts at UMass showcasing these brilliant compositions and his mastery of his craft.

Vonsattel will offer four concerts each semester at Bezanson Recital Hall, with each presenting different pieces out of Beethoven’s repertoire. The fall performances will be held on Oct. 22, Oct. 29, Nov. 19 and Dec. 16, which happens to be Beethoven’s birthday. The spring concerts are scheduled for Jan. 22, Feb. 26, March 6 and March 22.

All performances begin at 7:30 p.m. and are free to attend. Vonsattel will also perform the Hammerklavier Sonata on Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 11 a.m. as part of the department’s free Listening Room series.

Vonsattel was originally tapped by the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center to tackle this one-of-a-kind endeavor, learning and performing a total of 11 hours of the greatest music written just for one person. It is an undertaking that has never been presented at the New York music institution, and an honor unlike any bestowed on a UMass Music and Dance faculty member. 

After signing on at Lincoln Center, Vonsattel partnered with Camerata Pacifica, where he is the principal pianist, for a three-season engagement, and Music @ Menlo Chamber Music Festival and Institute, both in California, setting himself up to share the music of Beethoven from coast to coast.

“It’s an absolute career landmark for me,” says Vonsattel, who has been teaching at UMass since the fall of 2010. “Beethoven wrote these sonatas regularly, so playing these pieces is like reading a journal of his evolution. It’s great to study these pieces academically, or enjoy listening to them, but when you play them onstage you get a glimpse into the composer’s mind in a way that’s unbelievable. You get this fusion with Beethoven’s evolution, and they become part of you. It’s an extraordinary journey.”

Vonsattel’s performances, along with a lecture series at Lincoln Center will take place over six months beginning this October, while his Menlo schedule started over the summer and runs through summer 2027. He is already underway at Camerata Pacifica where, under the brand “Beethoven32,” he will perform over a three-year span.

“Gilles Vonsattel’s cycle of Beethoven’s piano sonatas in a single season will be not only an historic first for CMS, but a significant event globally, as few pianists anywhere have undertaken this monumentally difficult challenge,” said artistic directors David Finckel and Wu Han in the Lincoln Center season announcement press release. 

While he has played many of the sonatas before, almost all of them need some refreshing. “It’s like a triage,” he explains. “I have to decide which sonatas need cardiac resuscitation and which I can leave alone a bit and just check in on.”

Some of the pieces, including several of the hardest sonatas, he has never played and needs to learn from scratch.

Still, he relishes the task of playing one of his favorite composer’s entire catalog, and he recognizes the trust that has been put in him to bring this music to life.

“They have heard me playing Beethoven (at Lincoln Center) for decades, so this is a huge vote of confidence to be asked to do this. I appreciate their support and I don’t take this task lightly.”

Full details about Vonsattel’s performances on campus can be found on the Department of Music and Dance website.