Steinway Piano

In September 2013, Parbold Music Lancashire completed nine months of intensive fund-raising by purchasing a Steinway full Concert Grand, with grants provided by the Arts Council England, Lancashire County Council, West Lancashire Borough Council, Parbold Parish Council and North West Music Trust.

Of particular note was the £12,000 raised by the local community. Steinway & Sons, London, assisted in the search for the instrument and pointed Parbold Music Lancashire toward a full Concert Grand that was made in 2000, and commissioned in 2002 at the Barbican Hall, London where it had an illustrious career. The distinguished pianist John Lill CBE generously gave his time to trial the new piano at Steinway Hall and recommended it as “an outstanding instrument … with an extraordinarily wide tonal range”.

And so Parbold Music Lancashire achieved a long held ambition to which a distinguished alumni of pianists also lent their support. In recent years musicians including Stephen Hough, John Lill, Sunwook Kim, Noriko Ogawa, Martin Roscoe, Philip Smith, Andrew Wilde and Peter and Elaine Donohoe have performed in the recital series. The new Steinway enables Parbold Music Lancashire to meet the demands of such fine musicians and deliver the best for audiences.

Nikolai Demidenko was the first pianist to perform on the piano in its new home, and his Parbold Music Lancashire recital featured in Gramophone Magazine as one of ‘early autumn’s unmissable musical events’ alongside concerts in Tokyo, Madrid, San Francisco and the Royal Albert Hall.

Demidenko made a point of addressing the audience after the concert to compliment them because he was “very impressed by a collective will and determination of Parbold citizens who contributed to buying this Steinway; professional instruments are very expensive, but they are essential if the public wants to listen to music at its best.” (The Champion). He made the point that the piano now complemented the amazing acoustic of this exceptionally good and large 200-seat performance venue for a rural location.

Following his recital of works by Schubert he declared that “this piano sounds like a mint new Steinway (it has virgin new hammers), and during the next year it will open up and come to its full glory. … I have no doubt that the people of Parbold will enjoy many outstanding performances on this top-class professional instrument” (The Champion). Nicolai Demidenko later rated it as one of the best pianos he had played on his world-tours and John Lill confessed that it was the best he had ever played.

Later in the 2013 season, Joseph Middleton – ‘the cream of the new generation’ (The Times) – described it as a “superb piano” following his recent recital for Parbold Music Lancashire with Amanda Roocroft. David Daniels, concert pianist and piano tuner, takes care of the piano, and says that it is a “fantastic and amazingly good instrument that artists will want to seek out to play; there are only a few pianos in this league in the North West”.

At his sell-out concert in September 2014, the international concert pianist Paul Lewis repeated to the audience his first reaction at meeting Parbold Music Lancashire’s recently purchased Steinway Model D before rehearsing. He told the audience “I know this piano. I’ve played it at the Barbican Hall, London. It was their ‘big beast’ – the piano for all the big concertos. Evgeny Kissin, the great Russian virtuoso pianist, always requested it for his concerts.” He went on to say that he was delighted that such a superb instrument had come to a good home in Parbold.