After six years of fundraising and campaigning, Keene State College achieved the status of being an All-Steinway School.
According to the Steinway & Sons website, All-Steinway Schools are institutions which, “Demonstrate a commitment to excellence by providing their students and faculties with the best equipment possible for the study of music.”
Three Music Department faculty members, two music composition students and campaign sponsors and donors traveled to the Steinway & Sons Factory in Queens, N.Y. on Saturday, March 1 to make the selection of the final Steinway piano: The $273,000 nine-foot Model D Spirio | r.
The group, excluding the Music Department Faculty who were choosing the final piano in the selection room, experienced a tour of the factory. Through the tour, attendees witnessed the process of constructing Steinway pianos such as rim bending the outline, attaching the strings, painting the keys and tuning.
“It is so amazing to be able to put names to faces of all the people who put their hands and their talents into building the instruments,” said Emilie Jacobs, who was on the tour representing the Monadnock-based Putnam Foundation.
Jacobs added, “I feel like every time I see a Steinway played for the rest of my life, I’m going to picture the men making the keys and all those men who were doing the rim bending … It’s really powerful for me.”
KSC Music Faculty and Coordinator of Keyboard Studies Dr. Christina Wright-Ivanova said the piano chosen was, “love at first play” as it had “a warm, very colorful, almost poetic vibes.”
Wright-Ivanova added, “It was super sensitive to what I wanted to do and there were so many moments that I just went, ‘Oh yes, that’s what I want.’”
According to Wright-Ivanova, the selection team put the education of their students at the forefront of their minds throughout the decision process.
“We want something that’s going to really challenge their ear and make them listen really hard to every single thing they’re doing,” Wright-Ivanova said.
Spirios are pianos equipped to be self-playing and can also be synced to perform pieces from around the world, giving Keene State the opportunity to expand guest artist performances.
“We’re really providing students with that pinnacle of education and meeting students where they are and allowing them to learn not just the traditional way they have, but to enhance that learning with the ability to capture and record their own play,” Steinway & Sons Education Division Director Patrick Elisha said.
Elisha added the piano, “Allows students to experience what they would experience in a large concert hall or in a major conservatory, the biggest cities all over the world, right there in Keene.”
KSC’s Director of Development Marilyn Shriver said becoming an All-Steinway School brings a newfound level of honor to the institution.
“It is already attracting more students, institutions that have become All-Steinway Schools have reported that it has raised their visibility, not just in the music program, but the whole world,” Shriver said. “Steinway is seen as a mark of quality so we will be promoting it as a badge of quality for the college.”
According to Shriver, Keene State is one of the few institutions in the Northeast classified as All-Steinway and is one of over 200 worldwide.
“This is why I love fundraising, it’s not the fact we raised X amount of dollars for this, it’s the fact that the impact of this investment will be felt for decades,” Shriver said.
Regarding becoming an All-Steinway School, KSC President Melinda Treadwell said, “I’m excited that we dreamed, we didn’t hesitate and that we had the support to do it.”
Treadwell added, “What is distinct about Keene State, and the arts and our music program are part of that distinctiveness, [is] the quality. If we’re the higher quality of all the schools then this is where our students will choose to come.”
Similarly, Wright-Ivanova said the benefits of this distinction will be visible for years to come.
“These instruments are going to last at least 50 years, if not, beyond,” Wright-Ivanova said. “We’ve made an investment for the future of the arts in the whole region.”
According to Wright-Ivanova, the Music Department will be hosting a community fundraiser, a music-for-food initiative centering around the piano because, “We want to celebrate it and how it makes a connection to our community as well as to our campus and the connection to students and faculty.”
Nicole Dumont can be contacted at
ndumont@kscequinox.com
