All, On behalf of the IC Music School I want to thank everyone for their concerns, well-wishes and offers for assistance after the vandalism in our practice rooms. While still serious, the damage was not as extensive as was reported Sunday by the college, media and the rumor mill. It would have helped in that regard if they had just waited until I had the chance to actually touch the pianos. That was not until after 4 pm. Later in the evening Michelle and I drove down the hill to the Ale House, had a couple of burgers, a couple of brews and watched the Eagle and the Giants duke it out. :-) Here is a link you can try to see a video from a Syracuse TV station. Some inaccuracies but at least the old Steinway A sounds pretty good. (As Michelle breaths a sigh of relief :-) http://www.9wsyr.com/mediacenter/local.aspx?videoId=274095@wixt.dayport.com&navCatId=5 About 2/3rds of the pianos were vandalized. Most of the damage was done to the case parts and relatively little interior damage. Many were quick repairs accomplished on Sunday. We have about 28 pianos remaining to be repaired and many hours of work ahead but all the pianos will be ready for next semester. It is a shame but evidence suggests this was done by a music student/ s. We are hoping this will lead to more secure environment for the inventory and our students. I have been advocating for many years that at the very least, the grand practice rooms must be locked. We'll see but my longstanding efforts in that regard might finally come to fruition. The response from around the country has been amazing and overwhelming. We have received many offers for assistance, use of pianos and local facilities. Everyone here is sincerely grateful. Unfortunate but some times it takes an incident like this to fully appreciate all the great students we have in our schools. At times it seems like they just don't care but that simply is the not case for the majority. There was a large gathering outside the building Sunday evening for a candlelight vigil. The appreciation that was expressed for the work we do was very heartwarming. Regards, Don Donald McKechnie Piano Technician Ithaca College dmckech at ithaca.edu 607.274.3908 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://ptg.org/pipermail/caut.php/attachments/20091216/e44ede41/attachment.htm>
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC