The OSU music scene is getting a long overdue new edition this summer

It’s been more than 30 years since the LaSells Stewart Center had a new piano, and lately, concert-goers and pianists have noticed that its shelf life has expired.

“For several years it’s been a frustration,” said music aficionado and Oregon State University music supporter Shirley Byrne, “because you’d be on pins and needles hoping it would sound alright, and sometimes it did, and sometimes it didn’t.

“It’s had its day, put it that way,” agreed music professor Rachelle McCabe.

In other words, it was time for OSU to get a new concert grand, and it was the dream of McCabe and others that the new piano be spectacular. And that’s when the name Steinway & Sons began to be volleyed around the local music community.

Former OSU president John Byrne and his wife, Shirley, were frustrated with the sound of the Stewart Center’s piano, which simply wasn’t matching the quality of the performers sitting down to play.

Finally, after a concert illuminated just how poor the sound was getting, the Byrnes talked with McCabe about finding a new one.

“We just thought, ‘Why not?’ and John really took the lead and said, ‘We’ll do it,’” Shirley Byrne said.

Together they spearheaded a fund-raising effort that targeted music lovers in the community, and managed to raise a majority of the $77,000 needed to purchase and transport a new Steinway D Concert Grand piano from New York City, as well as create an endowment of more than $70,000 for the upkeep of the instrument, which could have a lifespan of more than 100 years.

“One of the wonderful things about the whole project is a great many people are excited about it,” Shirley Byrne said. “A lot of people feel that this instrument will be excellent. It will represent what we wish we could have for the whole community, in many aspects for our lives and certainly for the university. You want the best you can do and the best you can have.”

“This is an absolutely stunning piano. Once a few of these international names come and play it, they’re going to want to come back,” McCabe said. “We tried seven, all lined up, and this one immediately spoke to us as being the right instrument for our hall, for the needs of the project. It also has a big personality.”

“I wish I could play it every day,” Shirley Byrne said.

“It has the capacity to be very intimate yet it has this explosive energy too,” McCabe said. “If you want it, it responds.”

The campaign is $10,000 short of its goal, and the Byrnes are still contacting those interested in being part of the Steinway project. The piano itself will arrive this summer and will be unveiled this fall when students return to campus.

“We’re calling it the culture of piano in Corvallis,” McCabe said. “(We’re) just enhancing it. It’s not that it hasn’t existed, but it’s going to be a higher level and more of it.”

Soon, a series of piano concerts will test out the Steinway’s capacity for greatness.

“The idea of true excellence,” Shirley Byrne said, “is one that we all love.”

To make a contribution toward the Steinway campaign, contact John Byrne at 737-8695, McCabe at 737-5597, or rmccabe@oregonstate.edu.