Once the piano is restored, hopefully by Easter Sunday, members of the Neighborhood Congregational Church hope the instrument will help make high quality music events a cornerstone of the church’s offerings to the community for at least another century to come. “Eric does a lot of interpretations of pop in a classical style and I doubt if he’ll be able to keep us from playing with him.” “It will be fun blending our types of music. MASON & HAMLIN pianos are 100 made in the USA, with their commitment to quality evidenced by a limited production of fewer than 300 pianos a year. “I look forward to seeing Eric play any time,” Wood said. “You can get an idea of what an instrument’s potential is, and I think the piano still has good heart and good life in it.”Įven without its pending face-lift, the piano is very playable, which Wood will demonstrate at the concert. “It’s about the sound and touch and you listen to it, feel it,” Anderson said. “Structurally we get the piano back in good shape and then it’s my turn to bring it out,” said Anderson, who has tuned pianos for the likes of Ray Charles, Paul McCartney, Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand and Stevie Wonder, before they went out on stage. Next it will be placed in the hands of piano technician and tuner Bob Anderson. After replacing more than 5,000 parts involved in the instrument’s action, “It will have a new life,” said Grakov, who has rebuilt at least 12 grand pianos similar to the Mason & Hamlin. The Neighborhood Congregational Church’s piano committee has a team of experts poised to restore the centurion once the funds are raised.įirst it will go to Emil Grakov, an Austrian who has been restoring pianos for 24 years. Anyone with knowledge is probably dead now.”īudd, along with many others, is hopeful that someone in the community might know with whom the piano spent its first 50 years. “Who gave it and why it wasn’t recorded is beyond me. “It was given before we got there,” she said. June Budd and her husband, Sonny, have been going to the Neighborhood Congregational Church for 51 years. Just how the piano ended up at the church is a mystery. And how often do you stumble across something that’s 100 years old that can be as good as new?” Wood asked. A hundred years from now, a 100-year-old Yamaha is not going to elicit the same feeling as coming across a 100-year-old Mason & Hamlin. It can go from a whisper to a shout, not utilizing volume, but tone. In contrast, the century old Mason & Hamlin “was built by master craftsmen,” Wood said. “For $16,000 you can find a decent 6-foot but it’s just what it is, dependable but not really great.” There is a suggested donation of $15.īy spending the same amount of money it would cost to buy a new piano, the 1907 Mason & Hamlin can be refurbished, resulting in a far more valuable and superior instrument, according to Wood. Musicians Steve and Beth Wood and guitarist Eric Henderson will perform. But once the veil of obscurity had been lifted, efforts have been redirected to instead restore the vintage Mason & Hamlin.Ī concert to raise funds to restore the piano to its original glory will be at 8 p.m.
The timing of Wood’s discovery was fortuitous as the church has been raising money to buy a new one. “It’s a really great American piano on a par with a Steinway,” Wood said.
Mason and Hamlin began by focusing their. In 1888, the company changed its name to Mason & Hamlin Organ & Piano Company, which it retained for many years thereafter. The 103-year-old piano, a Mason & Hamlin Model A Grand, is considered to be the world’s best grand piano less than 6 feet. Mason and Hamlin set up their first factory on Boston’s Cambridge Street, and within the next thirty years moved to 277 Washington Street and 154-155 Tremont Street in Boston. “I was excited.” Wood had discovered “a battered diamond.” “I lifted the lid and saw the name Mason & Hamlin,” Wood said. We’ve shown it below.For years the piano sat quietly in a corner of Bridge Hall at the Neighborhood Congregational Church, more adornment than instrument.īut last spring, composer and musician Steve Wood sat down before the old piano to practice before performing at a service that day in the sanctuary next door. In fact, the Discovery Channel filmed an entire segment on Mason’s factory process for “How Its Made”. Not every piano builder considers the precision of an instrument to be critical to the essence or ‘soul’ of its pianos, but at Mason, on every single floor of their 6-story factory building, you can observe the commitment to perfection. Very few woodworking companies in the world can claim a factory tolerance of 0.004″, as Mason can, and it’s baked right in to the company’s philosophy. Mason & Hamlin has elevated the art of piano building to a new standard of precision.
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