Articles not Written: Visiting Ives

Grant Chu Covell

[May 2026.]

Among incomplete articles I started for La Folia, include notes on a visit to the Ives Studio reconstructed at the American Academy of Arts and Letters (https://www.artsandletters.org/ives-studio).

A visit in September 2015 led immediately to remarks which I have not been able to finish (or properly start). Charles Ives was elected to the Academy in 1946 and died in 1954. In 1969, Ives’ widow, Harmony, conveyed all Ives’ future royalties to the Academy, which has been able to fund scholarships and awards.

In 2012, the entire contents of Ives’ Redding, Connecticut studio were bestowed upon the Academy who built a permanent exhibit out of the artifacts which include Ives’ piano, books and ephemera. Ives’ father’s cornet is also there. This is the studio where Ives worked during the last decades of his life, and where works such as Three Places in New England and Symphony No. 4 were written.

It’s a lovely room. When I saw it over a decade ago, they had done a wonderful job simulating natural light. Getting to it takes a bit of planning as they are open by appointment only, and the entrance to the exhibit space requires navigating counterintuitively though a large plaza.

A broad view into the studio:

Was Ives neat? Or are we witnessing a curator’s fancy?

Is the piano in tune?

Would the man who wrote a manual for selling insurance have an uncluttered desk?

[Grant took these images back in 2015.]