Central High School’s grand piano, bought in 1927 for the school’s opening, belies its name. In its current state, there isn’t anything grand about it.
The ebony instrument of hard rock maple and spruce wood, steel and copper strings and ivory keys - once a magnificent masterpiece of precision construction - sits on the stage in the school’s 2,070-seat auditorium, battered and bruised.
Teenage graffiti is carved into its expansive top. Its delicate inner mechanisms are littered with a hodgepodge of lesser quality makeshift replacement parts, the result of an earlier dubious restoration job following damage caused during a fire in the auditorium in the 1990s. From there, the piano fell into deeper disrepair and, left unsecured, was vandalized. Today, the once-stately, now-shabby instrument, its accompanying bench long gone, stoically awaits a return to its former grandeur.
The last time it served any real purpose around the school? It was used last year as a prop in a play.
But in its day, the Model A III Ebony Grand Piano manufactured by Steinway & Sons of New York was one of the finest examples the premier piano company produced, says Mike Anderson of Anderson’s Piano Clinic and Discount Music Center in Cabot, who specializes in restoring pianos, many of them Steinways.
“This particular piano is known as a stretched A Model,” he says, explaining that, at 6 feet, 4 ½ inches, it was longer than the standard A Model. Anderson adds that, according to the piano’s serial number, construction on it began in late 1926. A letter from Steinway & Sons of Long Island, New York, confirms the piano was delivered to Houck Music Co. From there, it was bought for the new Little Rock High School (now Central High), a two-block long school completed in 1927 for $1.5 million, prompting the National Association of Architects to proclaim it “the most beautiful high school building in America.” In 1982, the Department of the Interior designated the building a National Historic Landmark for the role it played in the integration crisis of 1957.
It’s believed that classical pianist Arthur Rubinstein may have once tickled this piano’s ivories, and 1950s photos depict others, like the late local jazz musician Art Porter, also performing on the Steinway.
“These pianos are rare,” says Anderson, who has only ever worked on one other one.
AN EBONIZED WHITE ELEPHANT
But as recently as four or five years ago, Central’s Steinway grand piano came close to meeting its end at the request of a teacher, who didn’t realize the value or significance of the piano, just that it was unusable and took up a lot of space.
“Paperwork had been filled out to junk it,” says Scott Whitfield, the school’s choir director, adding, “I don’t think that teacher knew what the instrument was. At that point, I went to the principal, Nancy Rousseau, and said ‘We have to stop this from happening.’”
Rousseau says,“It is my understanding that our beautiful old Steinway was purchased in 1927 for the opening of our historic school. I have been told that it has never left our stage in 86 years. We looked at replacing it several years ago, but realized that, although it was old, it was very valuable and worth keeping. Our Steinway is a piece of history - the oldest artifact in the building besides the building itself.”
Since then, the cry to save the Steinway has grown to an organized, concerted effort, with an array of students, faculty, school supporters and volunteers joining forces to rescue this piece of musical history.
After the Tiger Foundation, a private, nonprofit organization that supports academics, fine arts, athletics and citizenship at the school formed last year, Whitfield submitted a proposal for the foundation to raise money to restore the piano.
The foundation, independent from Central High and the Little Rock School District, has recently started a fundraising campaign. It has also applied for a grant.
The goal is to restore the instrument to its original condition and once again hear majestic music flowing from it and filling the school’s auditorium.
To raise awareness among the school’s community, three students in the EAST (Environmental And Spatial Technologies) Lab classroom created a public service announcement about the project that will soon be aired on the school’s in-house TV station.
Students Bianca Harris, a 16-year-old 11th-grader; Miuni Ezell, a 14-year-old ninth-grader; and Nia Akins, a 16-year-old senior at the school began making the 1-minute, 28-second video at the beginning of the school year. The trio recently completed the spot, which features vintage photos gleaned from old yearbooks of the piano surrounded by choir and orchestra students set to a local artists’ cover version of Avicii’s current hit, “Wake Me Up.”
The students say the project has been an educational one.
“We learned a lot about the piano and how important it is,” Nia says.
Bianca agrees: “When we first began this I was thinking, ‘An old piano? Why are we doing a project on this? It’s just an old piano?’ But now I appreciate it much more.”
Kirby Shofner, EAST Lab director and the students’ teacher, says they have learned something else as well, “how to work together as a team … to achieve a single goal.”SPREADING THE WORD, NEAR AND FAR
Julie Keller of Little Rock, Tiger Foundation secretary,hopes to include the students’ public service announcement video in the presentation she’s preparing to apply for a grant from a private foundation that would be used to restore the piano.
“I’m also hoping to stir up interest with the community,” Keller says, adding donations from individuals, no matter how small, are welcome. “Central High has many loyal supporters and alumni around the state.”
And outside Arkansas as well.
“Just the other day, I received a $5 donation from someone in Culver City, Calif., who had heard about the effort and wanted to contribute to it,” she says.
Keller isn’t an alumnae of Central High; she’s a Hall High graduate. But her husband, Cristoph, graduated from Central in the 1970s and so did their daughter, Mary-Olive, in 2008.
“They originally asked my husband to join the foundation but he declined because he was too busy,” she says. “When he did, I was thinking, ‘I hope they ask me’ and they did.”
Keller has never played piano, but she recognizes the historical importance of saving this one.
“This piano was bought when the school opened and it’s been here ever since, through all the historic moments that have occurred here,” she says. “When I heard it was in the condition it was in, I thought ‘this is just tragic.’ I also thought restoring it would be good for the school and for the morale here.” IF KEYS COULD TALK
Before the Joseph Taylor Robinson Memorial Auditorium, known since 1973 as Robinson Center Music Hall, was completed in late 1939, Central High School (then Little Rock High) offered the largest auditorium in the city, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture.
“Because of that, many concerts and public events were held there,” Whitfield says of the school auditorium.
Anderson says a total restoration of the piano to its original, grand condition (following Steinway specifications and using all Steinway-manufactured parts) will take six months to a year to complete and cost $22,000 to $26,000.
But once done, he adds, the instrument would also greatly increase in value.
“Once restored, the value would be between $62,000 and $70,000,” Anderson says, adding, “And that’s just for the instrument itself; not taking into account its additional historical value.”
Keller says if fundraising efforts prove successful, she will make sure the piano, once restored, has a safe place at the school where it will be secured. They also plan to replace the long-gone bench that matched it.
She has promised to treat the three students who made the public service announcement to breakfast.
“I want these kids in the choral and jazz bands to have a beautiful instrument to use,” Keller says. “Last year, we had a young girl who performed an original composition. It was beautiful but she had to play it on an electric keyboard.
“That was the best we could offer her.”
Style, Pages 19 on 01/21/2014