A New Year’s Eve Surprise in New York City

BY ROXY JONES

There are 12,116 parts in a Steinway piano. It takes all these parts plus one pianist to journey through the music universe to create sound. As an aspiring pianist, I am fortunate to have had two tours of the Steinway & Sons factory in the last six months.

While visiting New York City on a family holiday vacation, walking along the Avenue of the Americas, I discovered the Steinway & Sons showroom and fell in love with a limited-edition Model B Steinway which had that rich sound only found on a Steinway. I asked if we could visit the factory but to my disappointment, the salesman told me the factory was closed that week. I revisited the showroom several times to play that piano and I asked my dad if we could return to New York to tour the factory someday.

A few days later on New Year’s Eve, my dad woke us up early with a surprise for me—he had arranged a private tour of the factory for us with Adrianna Stoiber, the Selection Room manager at the factory. A short drive to Queens, and we found ourselves in front of the Steinway & Sons New York factory. We were warmly greeted by Adrianna, who made it possible for us to visit that day. During the week of Christmas to New Years, the factory is closed, and all the workers are on holiday–making the entire experience quite unique and enjoyable. I felt as if we had the entire factory to ourselves. Walking the quiet factory floor, seeing the empty work stations of the craftsmen, their tools laying idle, made me imagine how much work is involved to bring those thousands of parts together to create a fine instrument.

A few months later I was participating in the 10th Chopin International Piano Competition in Hartford, CT. We arranged to return to the factory with my piano teacher, Natalya Panchenko. Adrianna was away and so she connected us with her colleague, Cameron, to escort us through the factory to share this experience with Ms. Natalya. My second visit contrasted my first, because this time, the factory was alive and bustling with action.

Roxy Jones inside the Steinway Piano Factory in New York City

The factory is comprised of many levels, each housing an area to complete a designated task in crafting these fine instruments—nearly everything is handmade, and it takes about a year to build each piano.

Craftsman at the Steinway Factory

From watching the strong men glue and bend the long, laminated wood into the press for the curved piano case, to seeing the fine detail work that goes into the action, learning about how this magnificent instrument is built and how it functions helps me to play it better.

Now, as I play the piano, I think about those 12,116 parts, coming together, each one connected to another to create beautiful music. The rich sound of that piano in the Steinway & Sons New York City showroom comes from generations of craftsmen, using their hands, producing pianos for our hands and ears to enjoy. No wonder 98% of professional pianists prefer Steinway!

Craftsman at the Steinway Factory

Roxy Jones is a 12-year-old classical pianist from Las Vegas, NV. She recently won first place in the Steinway & Sons Junior Competition in Las Vegas, and she has won several other awards in local, national, and international competitions. She is a 6th grader at Hyde Park Middle School, and she studies piano under Natalya Panchenko. Tours of the Steinway & Sons factory in NYC are available on their website.