Cincinnati Enquirer

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When the piano department at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music puts on its fourth annual "Pianopalooza" concert tonight in Corbett Auditorium, a camera crew will be slithering around six Steinway concert grand pianos onstage in Corbett Auditorium.

A crew from "CBS Sunday Morning" is in town to feature the CCM piano faculty performing a concert to celebrate the school's new collection of 165 Steinway pianos. The record-breaking, $4 million deal with Steinway & Sons makes the college an all-Steinway school. It is the single largest sale in the 156-year history of the storied piano maker.

The gleaming, new instruments now grace teaching studios, concert stages and practice rooms throughout the sprawling media and performing arts college. The school's faculty members are pinching themselves.

"I feel like Willie Wonka in his chocolate factory," pianist and teacher Michael Chertock says. "This has been tremendous."

Today's concert will be a rare opportunity to hear six 9-foot concert grand pianos at once, when the six artists on the piano faculty - Chertock, Awadagin Pratt, Eugene and Elizabeth Pridonoff, James Tocco and Frank Weinstock - take the stage for Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," with conductor Mark Gibson and the CCM Philharmonia Orchestra. A seventh pianist, CCM professor of accompanying Sandra Rivers, will also perform during the program.

The pianists were surprised at the reception to their first "Pianopalooza" event featuring the entire piano faculty in one blockbuster concert four years ago.

"I've certainly been surprised, simply because the hall has been sold out each year," says Elizabeth Pridonoff, who plans to perform despite a broken elbow. "It's fun. People bring their children, and it's a real event, an outing. It's not just a serious classical concert. I think it's for everybody."

Last week, three of the pianists discussed this year's program in the Pridonoff studio in Memorial Hall, where two elegant new 7-foot "Model B" Steinway grand pianos sat side-by side.

Eugene Pridonoff played a bit of Chopin on each piano to demonstrate their extraordinary sound. The first was bright but clear; the second, more mellow, with a gorgeous tonal palette. "Like velvet" is how Pridonoff described its touch.

"It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," he says. "I didn't know that I'd ever have such incredible pianos in my studio. The quality and workmanship of the American Steinway is unlike anything I ever saw in my lifetime."

Steinway is a preferred instrument for many concert artists around the world. Rivers, Tocco and the Pridonoffs (who also perform as the Pridonoff Duo) are all Steinway Artists. Part of the arrangement with Steinway includes an annual recital series to be held in Steinway Hall in New York. Three recital dates are planned for next fall, to feature CCM faculty members Pratt, Tocco and Chertock.

Suddenly, the piano department is experiencing a record number of student auditions for next year.

"I think this is the highest percentage we've ever had of our top picks, all confirming to come to school here," Chertock says. "I'm sure one of the reasons is they spent some time talking to students here and warming up in practice rooms. And every practice room now has a brand new Steinway piano."

In November, UC's board of trustees approved the $4 million purchase, a deal that sliced $1.8 million off the retail price. Although plans to buy new pianos had simmered under previous administrations, it was one of the first items on the to-do list of CCM's new dean, Douglas Knehans, who arrived in September.

"When I toured the building for my first interview, I noticed these amazingly impressive facilities, and one of the key aspects of the infrastructure, the pianos, didn't match that quality," Knehans says. "Beyond that, what this is all about is the student experience. ... There's nothing that does that better than placing (students) in front of an instrument they know they can rely on to deliver back to them exactly what they're putting into it."

The purchase included three "Model D" 9-foot concert grand pianos, one hand-picked at Steinway's Hamburg, Germany, factory. Representing the ultimate in piano craftsmanship, the concert grands can sell for as much as $120,000 to $150,000 each.

Most of the other pianos are small, upright pianos intended for practice rooms and studios.

The school will finance the purchase over eight years through a "cocktail" of endowment sources, Knehans says. CCM is also looking for a named donor to help fund the pianos.

For Steinway, the record sale is significant not only in dollars, but also because it brings the piano and the study of music further into the public arena, says Sally Coveleskie, national director, institutional sales for Steinway & Sons, headquartered in New York and Hamburg.

"No matter what discipline of study is chosen, the arts are an integral part of our overall humanity," she says. "Playing the piano and listening to music enrich our civilization. That's vitally important, especially in these challenging times."

Chertock and his colleagues are hoping to recapture the spectacle and aura of piano concerts of a bygone era. The performing forces for Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" - six pianos, 12 hands, 60 fingers - will balloon even further for the grand finale, to be a surprise.

"They were spectacular events, and there was this drama and excitement that even somebody who wasn't naturally a lover of piano picked up on. We want to capture the aura of glamour and excitement, not in a competitive environment, but in a dramatic environment," Chertock says.
"Then there's always the drama of, will I play?" laughs Elizabeth Pridonoff, holding up her arm in a cast.

In this July 20, 1969 photo, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin plant the U.S. flag on the lunar surface. The photo was made by a 16mm movie camera inside the lunar module, shooting at one frame per second.