← Steinway.com ← Boston Pianos ← In the News ← Fall/Winter 2008 Boston Newsletter
From bureaucracy to beautiful music
Music teacher Vai-Meng Lei gives a piano lesson
When government offices in Solon, Ohio, moved into a new city hall 13 years ago, the question arose: What can be done with the historic Old City Hall built in 1899? Rather than tear it down, city leaders and citizens launched a campaign to save the old Georgian structure from the wrecker’s ball.
And while the decision to convert the building into a multi-purpose community arts center was unanimous, no one could have anticipated what a community treasure the restoration would become. Especially with the addition of Steinway-designed pianos.
Since opening day in 2002, Solon Center for the Arts has become so popular that townsfolk wait in line (even bringing lawn chairs to make longer waits more comfortable) on registration day for fall classes. Last year, more than 10 percent of the city’s 25,000 residents… nearly 2,700 people… enrolled in the center’s music, art, dance and theater programs.
Much of that programming was possible through an arrangement between the center and a Cleveland piano dealer who agreed to loan new pianos to the center. It was an arrangement that seemed to work… until the dealer went out of business.
Faced with a slate of increasingly popular music programs… and the prospect of no pianos… the center’s executive director, Karen L. Prasser, immediately thought of a name she trusted. After all, with a master’s degree in piano accompanying and a 17-year career as pianist, coach and conductor for opera and ballet companies across the country, she knows a thing or two about fine musical instruments.
“My piano of choice was a Steinway,” says Ms. Prasser, also immediately conceding, “but I also had no budget to consider back then.”
That’s when Ms. Prasser contacted Bruce Sumwalt and Bryan Finegan at Mattlin-Hyde Piano Co. in Lyndhurst, Ohio, a division of Steinway Hall-Akron, the exclusive dealer for the family of Steinway-designed pianos in northeast Ohio. There, she discovered that although three Steinway pianos exceeded possible resources, there was an alternative: one Steinway grand and two Steinway-designed Boston pianos.
But the center had nothing in its budget to purchase any piano. No problem. The non-profit Friends of Solon Center for the Arts immediately launched a successful Legacy Campaign with the help of Mattlin-Hyde to purchase the instruments.
Ms. Prasser says, “Mattlin-Hyde worked with us while we raised the funds,” which happened quickly thanks to “good people who believe in what we’re doing.” Moreover, a major foundation in Cleveland gave the center a grant, which the city matched and then exceeded it.
Almost before they could say Steinway & Sons, center supporters had raised enough money to acquire a Steinway grand piano for its 204-seat theater and two Steinway-designed Boston grand pianos (GP-163) for the music studios.
Ms. Prasser admits with pride, “We love those Bostons… their touch and sound.” The Boston grand pianos will serve as solo instruments and for accompaniment in a varied music program that offers everything from My Little Mozart group piano lessons for three-year-olds to a newly formed intergenerational orchestra… and just about everything in between. This year, the center is adding an opera season as well.
“We never had any idea we’d have so many people come through these doors,” Ms. Prasser concedes, “but now that we own these fine pianos, the sky’s the limit.”