Faculty, friends select concert grand piano for Ward Hall at Steinway in NYC
Janel Shoun |
Today, a group of Lipscomb friends and faculty will head to New York to tour the Steinway factory and personally select a new Steinway nine-foot concert grand piano.
“I’m looking for a piano that has a soul,” said Jerry Reed, professor of music, who will have the primary responsibility for selecting the instrument. “I’m not sure I’ll know what that is until I hear it, but usually it’s pretty clear to most pianists as soon as you play if it is really a great instrument or not.”
For the past few months, Lipscomb has been conducting a fund-raising campaign to purchase a concert grand piano for Ward Hall, said David England, associate vice president of advancement. A piano of this quality can cost close to $100,000.
Reed, President Randy Lowry and wife Rhonda, other university officials and several leadership-level donors who have contributed toward the piano will leave for New York City today where they will spend three days and enjoy a personal tour of the Steinway factory including a demonstration of how a wooden rim is bent for a Steinway piano. The tour will end in the selection room, where various grand pianos will be available for Reed to play and consider for purchase.
Only 2,500 Steinway grand pianos are created each year in America, and of those, only 500 are nine-foot concert grand pianos, said Bill Metcalfe, president of the Steinway Piano Gallery of Nashville, who helped Lipscomb coordinate the factory visit and selection.
“By having a concert grand of this magnitude, Lipscomb will be able to attract performers it wouldn’t attract otherwise,” said Metcalfe, noting that there are 1,400 “Steinway artists” around the world (musicians with musical credibility on the stage, who own a Steinway and have declared they will only play a Steinway).
“Lipscomb will be able to attract students it wouldn’t attract otherwise attract, and the concert grand will satisfy the needs of the professors for teaching,” Metcalfe continued. “Students need the experience of playing on a nine-foot grand. The music program will be enhanced dramatically.”
The Steinway will be just the latest in a string of major enhancements of the music program. In addition to the Ward Hall renovation last summer, a new music wing is under construction with new rehearsal rooms and faculty offices and Willard Collins Auditorium is being renovated.
The new concert grand Steinway, will be dedicated at the first Artist Series concert of the 2007-08 season on Oct. 15. Frederic Chiu is a concert pianist with more than 20 CDs on the market who has performed with the likes of violinist Joshua Bell and with numerous symphonies around the world. His repertoire includes the complete work of Prokofiev as well as popular classics of Chopin and Liszt.
The sixteen people who are traveling to New York this week will likely be in the audience and will have a special connection to the new piano. They will have seen the lumber yard where the wood is seasoned before it is cut and crafted. They will have seen the workers cutting the wood and bending the rim on rim press that applies 450 pounds of pressure.
It takes a year to build each Steinway piano, said Leo Spellman, director of communications for the Steinway company, and the instruments are built largely the same way they were crafted in the 1880s.
“Most people who visit this factory come away with an inspiring experience,” said Spellman.
The selection room can hold up to 20 pianos, and each one sounds slightly different, Spellman said. “They are like children, they each have their own personality,” he said.
Schools, churches and performing arts organizations often come to New York to select their piano, Spellman said. About 100 selections a year occur at the factory. The selection room is even designed with special technology to replicate the acoustics of a performance space of any size, he said.
Reed said he expects to not only play the pianos himself, but to let others on the trip play, so he can take a step back and hear the sound quality from far away. The stiffness of the keys will also be a factor in the decision, he said.
“Because I am selecting a piano for a small hall, I am looking for a clarity of sound, an intimacy of sound that will be different from a piano selected for a huge hall like the Schermerhorn Symphony Hall,” Reed said.
Cost to attend the dedication concert on Oct. 15 will $15 for adults, $7 for non-Lipscomb students and free for Lipscomb students, faculty and staff. Updates on ticket sales and other Lipscomb concerts can be found laster this fall at www.lipscomb.edu or at music.lipscomb.edu.