We've had the piano sitting in a room
upstairs, unused for several years, and so
the piano sat there in a dark room, not
being played, and that's tragic.
It's a beautiful instrument and it's
meant to be played and it's meant to be
played a lot. It's not meant to sit in a
room unused.
So, when the opportunity came to consider donating it and especially
in light of Algonquin's 50th anniversary
we thought, "Well, why not explore it as a
possibility?" Because, the alternative
would be the piano would continue to sit
not being played.
The day they got to the college and started
bringing it in, students were
here for one of their exams right before
the Christmas break and they heard
rumors that we're getting something like
this. They're actually lining up to to
see it and to watch it and I snuck a few
in later that day, it hadn't been tuned or
anything, but it's still sounded incredible.
It's a huge gift. It's something that we never necessarily
fathomed would come in and
when it did it became a massive lift for the entire program.
I'm overwhelmed a little bit at how
this has worked. CBC working
with us, they've been fantastic from the
beginning all the way through to the
days of delivery.
This is amazing.
We went from an apartment size upright piano
that didn't stay in tune very well - the action was off.
This is going to give them
better quality recordings obviously it's
going to entice more musicians to come
in for their projects that they work on
on their own time to to play on this.
I think when the word gets out to the Ottawa
music community that we have a Steinway
will be in our studio and our students
are looking for subjects to record
for the year we're going to have people
come wanting to come in just for that to
work with our students which gives our
students a little bit more of an
accessible more accessibility to two
high-ranking musicians. You know having a
grand piano in a recording studio is
rare these days. Studios arn't as big as
they used to be and you know so having
something like this is is going to be
very appealing to many people in
our community.
Justin's a great piano player and
probably starting October of this year
he started complaining about piano, which
happens, the piano we had in
here didn't stay tuned for very long after we had it tuned.
Being a good pianist he notices these things and
when this all came about and it looked
like it was confirmed and we let him
know that you know we're working on the
piano situation for you and he actually
thought we were getting this just for
him - which it was pretty funny.
There's so much we can do for recording engineers or
musicians or artists people who just
want the experience in general it just
opens up the possibilities because now
we have such a great sounding instrument
that we can use on our projects that we
can study. People who haven't used a
grand piano now have a a window of
opportunity to have their hands dirty
essentially with such a prestigious
instrument such as a Steinway.
The thought of CBC Ottawa being able to
contribute, to donate the piano to
Algonquin where students can play it for
years and years and years it just seemed
to make a lot of sense.
So, we're really happy to do it. It worked out!
And it was worth it, totally worth it.
It would be extremely rare to get a gift like this.
I mean gifts like this don't typically happen.
So this opportunity and a way of
almost repurposing the piano from what
it was is incredible and it's an
incredible opportunity for the college
and the faculty and the students as well
I would like to thank them, just profoundly
thank them, for giving us the students,
the teachers, the program, this
opportunity with this instrument and for
many years of greatness to come with it.
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