Eric, I understand the frustration with the lack of budget, I think we all do. But to settle with only one brand just because it is better than the previous situation seems strange to me. I can’t help but think the powers that be, including the donor and faculty, could not be convinced of seeing the advantage of new Steinways and other great pianos. Our other brands of performance practice pianos (Mason & Hamlin, Kawai, Schimmel) receive just as much use as the Steinways, determined by condition, not brand. Our halls have a mixture. One has a Schimmel 213 and and occasionally a Grotrian 223 as a second piano and people are very happy with them. One has a CFIII with no complaints, although I desire to replace it. Our main hall has a Hamburg, New York and a Bösendorfer Imperial. Requests for their use is in the same order as listed. I find it fascinating that both students and visiting artists would rather ask me what others use instead of playing and selecting themselves. Pianists, I have decided, have an overdeveloped lemming gene. I am not attempting to be negative, as in anti-Steinway. I am very frustrated with the closed minded musicians I encounter too often. I am amazed that professors would deliberately handicap their students by giving them one option for both practice and performance. Do they really think this prepares a student for life outside the walls of the University? They can’t possibly believe that every piano their student will encounter will be a Steinway. If they do, they certainly do not get around much. David Porrit wrote recently of a visiting artist that refused to play a Yamaha CFIII. What the artist is really saying is I am unable to adapt and make music on the piano given me. Not my idea of a musician. It reminds me of a concert I prepared for Frederic Chiu a number of years ago. He played a CFIII. Back then people at ASU recognized the Hamburg as the shiny piano with the large casters (before we installed large casters and a polyester finish on our American Steinway). Frederic played an incredible program, one of my all-time favorites. A couple of our (then) Steinway only folks mentioned to me at the reception how well I prepared the Hamburg, and about fainted when I told them with a smile it was a Yamaha. Turns out one can play beautiful music on a non Steinway. For the last three years I have witnessed the result of the Steinway only mentality at the ASU Bösendorfer International Competition. These are competitors from all over the world, winners of other major competitions, yet a large percentage of them are handcuffed by their Steinway only training and mentality. They slap and bang, making the most brutal sounds, muttering under their breaths their desire for a Steinway. Others recognize the richness and clarity of the instrument before them and adapt their performance to take advantage of it. They make beautiful music and succeed in the competition while the others limp off looking forward to playing on a Steinway again. Even the judges get into it. At the beginning they often profess: although they are happy such an event is sponsored by Bösendorfer, they would rather hear Steinways. By the end of the week, after adjudicating some incredible performances by great musicians, I have to chase the judges off the stage as they want to play the pianos during my prep time. Many of you recall the rebuilders showcase in Rochester. I was amazed at and grateful for one of the pianists I hired from Eastman. Caleb Harris was astute enough to recognize the musical strengths of each piano and tailored his repertoire and technique accordingly. He had the time of his life playing such a variety of instruments and those in attendance were treated to some inspiring music on equally inspiring pianos. This is what should be taught in our Institutions – find the beauty of the piano set before you and display it. Not play only Steinway because that is the preferred instrument. I don’t care what brand is on the stage, as long as it is prepared well, I want to hear someone make music with it. I don’t want to hear excuses or moaning, or a performance that does not match the characteristics and strengths of the piano. This is what defines a musician, it’s not the instrument, it’s the touch of the master’s hand. Off my soap box. Good luck with your impending new upkeep strategy. ________________________ Rick Florence Senior Piano Technician Arizona State University School of Music -----Original Message----- From: caut-bounces at ptg.org on behalf of Wolfley, Eric (wolfleel) Sent: Fri 11/21/2008 10:18 AM To: 'caut at ptg.org' Subject: Re: [CAUT] CCM goes "All Steinway" You know Rick, I've been trying to establish a budget here for piano replacement since I started 11 years ago with no results. The fact that there wasn't a budget to begin with speaks volumes, and believe me there are a couple of scenarios I would prefer over buying a whole bunch of Steinways all at once. The reality is however, that even if we didn't buy into the program we would still be buying a boatload of Steinways because we only had 38 of them here to start out with AND THAT'S WHAT EVERYBODY WANTS. Yes, it is a brilliant marketing strategy because both sides win. Steinway sells a bunch of pianos and we get a bunch of new pianos plus whatever "guise" of joining the elite such an act entails. Perception is an important factor as we attempt to market our school to the world. Calling it a "sellout" and calling it "a sad day for music" overly simplifies the matter and injects a bit of negativity which I don't think is necessary. There will still be a number of non-Steinway pianos here, but people will prefer the Steinways just as much as they do now. We have a fine Bosendorfer imperial grand and a Kawai EX on stage right now that are rarely used. Yamaha lent us a CF-III for a couple of years and even had the Yamaha concert tech team come prep it but it was almost universally passed over in favor of a 20-year old Steinway D on the same stage. It almost seems like a waste to have these pianos onstage because they are so rarely used...I'm all for piano diversity but the expense of "other" fine pianos precludes their being kept around if they are rarely used or desired. We have historically had a good diversity in our practice rooms over the years and guess what? The few Steinways we had were just being pounded into dust while the others were used only if there are no Steinways available. I don't think this would change if we put some new Yamahas, Kawais, Sauters, Schimmels or anything else in there. The people have spoken! They want Steinways because they like the sound and touch better. Who am I to force diversity upon our faculty and students? There will still be a wide range of artistic and intellectual diversity here and there will still be much discussion about what a being a good, lousy or great piano entails. In our case, the pros of maintaining diversity in the hardware were far outweighed by the vast improvement in our educational facility we will experience once all the new pianos arrive and have stabilized. I'm sure my arm is going to be sore for a year or two. Eric Eric Wolfley, RPT Director of Piano Services College-Conservatory of Music University of Cincinnati -----Original Message----- From: caut-bounces at ptg.org [mailto:caut-bounces at ptg.org] On Behalf Of Rick Florence Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 10:41 AM To: caut at ptg.org Subject: Re: [CAUT] CCM goes "All Steinway" I'm sure the infusion of the new Steinways will be an improvement over your present situation, but I can't help but think this is yet another sellout to a brilliant marketing campaign. I am constantly amazed at the number of educational institutions, whose very existence historically is possible because of a die-hard dedication to diversity and questioning status quo, making such a contradictory decision . Music institutions are being bought and paid for, robbing their students of the opportunity to make music on a variety of wonderful pianos, under the guise of joining the "elite." I wish more administrators had the guts to say to donors, "we would love to accept your donation and offer a complete musical education to our students by purchasing the best pianos from around the world, including Steinway." Instead, they are so excited about the money, they ignore the cornerstone of education - diversity. A sad day for music. ________________________ Rick Florence Senior Piano Technician Arizona State University School of Music -----Original Message----- From: caut-bounces at ptg.org on behalf of Wolfley, Eric (wolfleel) Sent: Fri 11/21/2008 7:59 AM To: 'caut at ptg.org' Subject: [CAUT] CCM goes "All Steinway" Hi All, Some of you may have already heard the news...Tuesday, the board of trustees at the University of Cincinnati approved a deal with Steinway that will make the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music an "All Steinway School". We will be purchasing 165 new pianos for the school all of which will be delivered before next June! This is the single largest deal in Steinway's history in terms of number of units purchased. The total price tag is 4.1 million. This deal is on the initiative of our new Dean, Douglas Knehans and is the cornerstone of a new capital campaign and just one of a plethora of sweeping moves he is making to improve CCM's global image. Here's a link for the deal...there was also a NY Times article last Tuesday, but I can't seem to make that link active. http://www.uc.edu/news/NR.asp?id=9235 I just got back from NYC where we selected the first batch of pianos, 2 D's and 8 B's and I was most happy to find the quality of the pianos in the selection room to be excellent...we had no trouble choosing our pianos. Our first shipment of 27 pianos arrives next week. While the quality of our performance pianos here at CCM has been perceived as excellent over the years, the age and quality of the pianos in the practice rooms, classrooms and studios has been a challenge. Before this deal, CCM had the largest inventory of Baldwins anywhere in the world I'm sure. The average age of our inventory here before this deal was 35 years so this will be quite an improvement for many years to come. I have no qualms or reservations about the deal...there's no question the quality level of our inventory is going way up. I am perfectly aware of the challenges that the next year will pose with all these green pianos but hey, there are worse problems to have. The nature of our jobs here will change dramatically for years to come...much less rebuilding, more tuning, voicing and regulating. I'll keep you all posted on how things go. Eric Eric Wolfley, RPT Director of Piano Services College-Conservatory of Music University of Cincinnati -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/ms-tnef Size: 8323 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut_ptg.org/attachments/20081122/a408afed/attachment-0001.bin>
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