Colburn Conservatory of Music student Yanyan Bao and Community School of Performing Arts student Kento Ishikawa (center) join Koni and Geoff Rich (left), Terri and Jerry Kohl (right), and Neema Pazargad and Sel Kardan (center back) in Zipper Hall for the debut of a new Steinway & Sons piano.
The latest addition to the School’s stellar fleet of pianos—a Steinway & Sons direct from the manufacturer—recently traveled more than 2,700 miles, crossed three time zones, and left an East Coast winter for its new home on the West Coast. Indeed, it has had an interesting journey, which was carefully overseen by Neema Pazargad, Colburn’s Director of Piano Technology.
Finding the right fit for Colburn began with a preliminary visit to Steinway & Sons in Astoria, New York, last fall. Geoff Rich and Jerry Kohl accompanied Colburn President and CEO Sel Kardan for a behind-the-scenes tour of the manufacturing facility. Then the painstaking work began. The following timeline explains the expert attention required to select and prepare a piano for the caliber of musicianship demonstrated by Colburn’s students, performing faculty, and guest artists.
January: Careful consideration
Pazargad and Carol Colburn Grigor Piano Chair Fabio Bidini arrived at the manufacturer’s selection room to evaluate newly crafted pianos.
“They had five concert grands prepared, and we spent a few hours playing them,” says Pazargad. “It’s always a fun experience, but a little bit of a nervous and pressure-filled experience, too. We’re trying to pick a piano for a venue but we don’t get to actually hear it in the venue until it arrives.”
After putting each piano through a series of assessments—judging mechanical functions, tonal performance, and its ability to sustain sounds—the duo made their selection.
“I was leaning towards the piano that had the most tonal output,” said Pazargad.
Early February: The piano arrives at Colburn
Brand-new instruments aren’t immediately top performers. After traveling cross-country, it needed time to acclimate and stabilize.
“Everything is new: The strings are new and still stretching. The action is still new, so it goes through several rounds of tunings and regulation. Once the strings and action are where they’re going to be we can really dive into the voicing,” Pazargad explains. “By the time it was ready for its inaugural concert it had probably maybe close to 40 hours of my work on it.”
Late February: The Steinway takes up residence in Zipper Hall
After a couple weeks in the Piano Technology workshop, the team transferred the Steinway to Zipper Hall. Finally, Pazargad could listen to how it coupled with the space.
“On stage in Zipper Hall it really was like, ‘Wow, this is a great sounding piano.’ It is just a beautiful, beautiful sounding piano,” he says.
To experience the piano’s first performance in the space, the generous donors who made it possible arrived for a mini-concert. Terri and Jerry Kohl and Koni and Geoff Rich listened to performances by Conservatory and Community School students, and Geoff Rich treated the group to a performance of his own! Now the piano is part of the School’s collection, and you may see it onstage at an upcoming performance in Zipper Hall.
The Steinway & Sons concert grand is a gift from Terri and Jerry Kohl and Koni and Geoff Rich. We are grateful for their generosity, which is creating remarkable opportunities for our students to develop their artistry at the Colburn School.