Today our IL group toured the Cunningham Piano Company restoration facility. We arrived at school at 8:30 and boarded our bus at 9:30 a.m. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the factory, and once we got there, we were welcomed by Rich Galassini, one of the co-owners of Cunningham Piano and our tour guide. A surprising fact we learned was that Rich was actually a student teacher at MFS many years ago.
Rich took us through the facility where we first saw someone working on a set of keys. He explained to us the “hammers” and how they work on a piano. We then went to another person who was working on a more complete piano that had just had a repaired sound board. He explained to us how the strings worked and also showed us a closet where they dried the wood.
After that, we went into a bigger room where two artists were tuning pianos, and Rich shared some stories about where the pianos came from and who they belonged to. Some of the stories were sadder than others. We then had to go up some VERY steep stairs to get to the finishing space. There were pianos in many different stages: sanded down, to-be-painted, and almost finished. We also saw the piano that had been built for Jonathan Scott and Zooey Deschanel. It was getting ready to be taken to their home in Manhattan.
After that, we took a group picture, and went back down the VERY steep stairs. The tour guide then told us we could play the piano on the completed ones. There was music all around the factory. We closed the day off with songs from Mr. Weber and a very mini choir performance. We then went back to school with the bus and got lunch and then worked on our studio projects. It was very interesting to learn about the making of pianos and very fun to be able to play them.
