Richmond Piano News
Guns 'n Roses Play Las Vegas with a Baldwin Custom R1 "High Roller"
This picture comes courtesy of our friends at Gibson/Baldwin Entertainment Relations. The piano is a Baldwin Custom R1 known as the “High Roller” currently used in the Las Vegas show by the band Guns ‘n Roses.
Baldwin "L1" in the Spotlight in Hit TV Show "Next Star"
"Next Star", Canada's hottest new reality series featuring talented singers age 15 and under, selected the Baldwin "L1" to accompany their finalists in this season's finale. Look for Baldwin pianos coming this fall on many of your favorite talent reality shows. Richmond Piano is Richmond's only authorized Baldwin dealer. Stop by our showroom and see for yourself why Baldwin pianos are the choice of many great performers.
These famous piano artists chose Baldwin pianos over any other brand not simply because they were paid for their endorsement, but because they chose Baldwin as a superior instrument. Peter Allen • Claudio Arrau (early on) • Wilhelm Backhaus • Bela Bartók • Count Basie • Harold Bauer • Sir Thomas Beecham • Leonard Bernstein • Jussi Björling • Jorge Bolet • Benjamin Britten • Emerson Buckley • Aaron Copland • Ernst von Dohnányi • Eddie Duchin • Bill Evans • Arthur Fiedler • Erroll Garner • Walter Gieseking • Alberto Ginastera • Eugene Goosens • John Green • Johana Harris • Natalie Hinderas • José Iturbi • Paul Jacobs • Serge Koussevitsky • Ruth Laredo • Josef Lhevinne • Rosina Lhevinne[/color] • Liberace • Adele Marcus • Eduardo Mata • Marian McPartland • Darius Milhaud • Benno Moiseiwitch • Pierre Monteux • Charles Munch • Eugene Ormandy • Vladimir de Pachmann • Leonard Pennario (early on) • Gregor Piatigorsky • Ezio Pinza • Francis Poulenc • Ottorino Respighi • Edwin Romain • Moriz Rosenthal • Max Rudolf • Leonard Shure • Sir Georg Solti • Igor Stravinsky • Soulima Stravinsky • Joseph Szigeti • Virgil Thomson • Werner Torkanowsky • Richard Tucker • Lawrence Welk • Mary Lou Williams • Earl Wild • Teddy Wilson • Eugene Ysaye - List courtsey of classicalmusicguide.com.
Pictures from the Atlantic Chamber Ensemble performance in the studios of WCVE Public Radio Monday, May 14.
Our Schimmel before the live broadcast.
Atlantic Chamber Ensemble playing Brahms selection.
Audience during performance. Shhhhhhhh, not a sound, all cell phones off.
Van Cliburn's Piano . . . continued from our Home page.
Christie’s expects the piano to go for $40,000 to $60,000, less than half the price of a concert grand these days but far more than Mr. Cliburn’s parents paid for it, which would have been $1,600 if it had been new when they bought it.
But the piano was already 11 years old when his mother, Rildia Bee O’Bryan, married his father, Harvey Lavan Cliburn Sr., in 1923. The piano was 22 when Mr. Cliburn was born, in 1934. Steinway & Sons says it was manufactured at its factory in Queens in 1912, but was not released for shipment until Dec. 24, 1915.
Mr. Cliburn admired his mother as a pianist — she had “perfect hands,” he said on Monday, and was his only teacher until he was 17. She had studied with Arthur Friedheim, a Russian-born pianist who had briefly been a pupil of Anton Rubinstein before switching teachers.
And No. 157754? Steinway said the piano, identified by its six-digit serial number, first went to Galveston, Tex. That destination is something of a mystery, and the piano must have done some more traveling before it reached the Cliburns.
“Mother said she and Daddy got it in Dallas,” said Mr. Cliburn, whose family moved to Texas when he was 6. He plans to give the money from the sale to the Juilliard School and the Moscow Conservatory.
Steinway said the piano returned to the factory in New York in 1956, two years before Mr. Cliburn won the International Tchaikovsky Competition at age 23 and became an international sensation. A 40-year-old piano that had been played by two serious pianists — Mr. Cliburn and his mother — probably needed some freshening up under the lid, though Steinway’s records do not show what work was done.
No. 157754 was not the only thing Mr. Cliburn was reminiscing about during lunch on Monday and a visit to Christie’s on Tuesday.
He remembered living at the Osborne, the apartment building diagonally across West 57th Street from Carnegie Hall, going to a Horn & Hardart restaurant down the block and noticing that the person next to him was reading a newspaper article with the headline “Van Cliburn Signs Million-Dollar Contract.”
Mr. Cliburn recalled flying to Moscow in 1958, on the way to the International Tchaikovsky Competition. He talked about having to play the first round, because the Tchaikovsky officials did not recognize the Leventritt award, which he won in 1954, as an international competition.
Had they put the Leventritt in that category, he could have skipped the first round in Moscow. Instead, he played both rounds in the competition.
He also reminisced about returning a cold-war hero: “I went over with two suitcases,” he said, “and came back with 17.” He said he bought some of the items in the Christie’s sale on the trip. “I had all these rubles,” he said.
He remembered playing a concert in Kansas City and having a backstage visitor at intermission: Harry S. Truman, the former president.
Mr. Cliburn was to play a Chopin sonata after the break and mentioned that it was not Sonata No. 2, the one with the famous funeral march. Truman, a pianist himself, said he knew perfectly well which one Mr. Cliburn was going to play.
“He said, ‘It’s the sonata in B minor, Op. 58 — I had such trouble with the development section,’” Mr. Cliburn said. “I had to go out and perform that thing right after that. I thought my heart would stop.”
He told another story, about a photograph of Truman playing a piano. Mr. Cliburn said Truman had told him that a reporter asked if Truman was playing the “Missouri Waltz.”
“He said, ‘Van, I needed the votes,’” Mr. Cliburn said, “‘and I wasn’t going to tell him I was really playing the Minuet in G by Paderewski.’”
Mr. Cliburn also talked about the thrill of hearing Olga Kern’s 13-year-old son Vladimir play No. 157754 at Christie’s over the weekend. Ms. Kern, a concert pianist, won the gold medal at the 2001 Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.
Some people might have trouble parting with a beloved piano that was a fixture — in their living rooms if not in their lives — for so long.
But there are always other pianos. At one point in his life, Mr. Cliburn said, he owned 25.
Tsunami auction gets $73 million bid for piano
The Associated Press
TOKYO -- Yahoo Japan says a bidder has pledged a staggering $73 million for a crystal piano put up for a tsunami charity auction but has yet to confirm whether it is a serious offer.
Yahoo Japan says it had to suspend the auction for the piano belonging to Yoshiki of heavy metal band X Japan after bids hit 6 billion yen ($73 million) earlier this week.
Yahoo has emailed the bidder to confirm the intention to buy the piano, but said Thursday there has been no response. Yahoo will wait several days before putting it up for auction again.
Yoshiki is among 280 artists, athletes and celebrities who joined the auction to raise money for reconstruction efforts after Japan's earthquake and tsunami left more than 27,000 people dead or missing.
Richmond Piano Says Happy Birthday Schumann
Richmond Piano was proud to provide a beautiful Brodmann Grand Piano for this memorable live performance in the WCVE studio.From the WCVE Radio blog: June 8th marked the 200th anniversary of the birth of Robert Schumann, and we at WCVE Public Radio celebrated with a recital by pianist Joanne Kong and violinist Karen Johnson. The program consisted of Schumann’s Sonata in a minor, Op 105, the third movement from the Fantasie for Piano in C Major, Op 17, the second and third movements from the F.A.E. Sonata and an original arrangement by Kong and Johnson of the very famous Traumeri.
Kong and Johnson are frequent collaborators. Their critically-acclaimed CD of English music, featuring the works of Elgar, Bridge and Vaughan Williams, is available through Brioso Recordings. Our sincere thanks to Joanne Kong and Karen Johnson for sharing their talents with the listeners of WCVE Public Radio. Enjoy a montage of this special recital performance.
A Schumann Celebration from Community Idea Stations on Vimeo.
Heard of The Street Piano Project? No?
Listen to Manny Panta play an upright at Coney Island:
From The Street Piano Project Website: Where did the idea come from? “The idea for Play Me, I’m yours came from visting my local launderette. I saw the same people there each weekend and yet no one talked to one another. I suddenly realised that within a city, there must be hundreds of these invisible communities, regularly spending time with one another in silence. I hoped that by placing a piano into the space acts as a catalyst for conversation. Listening to a BBC world radio service programme, it seems to be working.”
The street pianos project also grew out of a disaster. Sky Orchestra is an performance artwork of mine that involves playing music in surround sound from 7 hot air balloons. Drifing over a city at dawn the aim is to inspire the publics’ imagination as they lie at home in their beds. In 2007 we were commissioned to perform over Birmingham and we’d promised the city council we’d reach an audience of 100,000 people. We all turned up to perform but the MET office got their weather prediction wrong and it was too windy to fly. We had to pay all the pilots and musicians for this failed attempt and had no artwork to show for it. With most of the budget blown, I had to think of a new artwork in just 3 weeks, that would reach 100,000 people. Play Me, I’m Yours is that artwork.
More about the artwork and the journey so far . . . Disrupting people’s negotiation of their city, the pianos are also aimed to provoke people into engaging, activating and claiming ownership of their urban landscape.
The pianos have also levered many hidden musicians from out of the woodwork. It has become apparent that there are hundreds of pianists out there who don’t have access to a piano to play. ‘Play Me I’m Yours’ provides access to musical instruments and provides musicians an opportunity to share their creativity by performing in public. To learn more, visit The Street Piano Project Website.
Richmond Piano Provides Pianos for Richmond Jazz Society
Richmond Piano is pleased to support the Richmond Jazz Society Guest Educator Series by providing pianos for their Capital Ale performances. Upcoming performances are as follows Thursday, June 24: Stephanie Nakasian; Tuesday, July 13: Rudy Faulkner Septet.
Repair & Restoration News
The current economic environment has spurred growth in our repair and restoration business. Rather than buy a new instrument, some individual musicians and institutions are choosing to refurbish or repair their beloved classic. Richmond Piano has been restoring fine pianos in this area for 35 years. We are recognized nationally as expert piano rebuilders and are recommended by a long list of clients.
Where will you see our pianos next?
Richmond Piano supports many local music and arts groups around town. Whether it's providing pianos or tuning services, we look for opportunities to be part of local events. Next time you see a piano just sitting around, ask if it's a Richmond Piano piano.
Remember: Enough about the economy already. We keep our focus on the positive events around us.
Upcoming Events
Stay tuned . . . as we always say.
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