Hancher group travels to New York for new Steinway piano

CORALVILLE - A grand sound is poised to ring through Hancher's new rafters whenever a piano is needed.

Recent Hancher box office administration retirees Richard Gloss and Hal Ide of Iowa City helped make that happen - at home and in New York.

They were part of a sextet that traveled to the Steinway & Sons factory in New York City on Oct. 2 to choose a signature instrument for the University of Iowa's Hancher stage.

Others in the group included Chuck Swanson, Hancher's executive director; Kirk Davis, piano division director at West Music Co. in Coralville; and Steve Carver, former piano tuner for the University of Iowa's School of Music, now the head piano technician at Juilliard.

The sixth member of the group was Emmanuel Ax, internationally renowned Grammy-winning classical pianist, whom Swanson calls 'a friend of Hancher.”

'He's performed there maybe eight times over the years,” Swanson said. 'I just asked his agent, and (Ax) said he would be more than pleased to help with the selection of the piano.”

He's 'Manny” to Gloss, who has turned pages for Ax at Hancher. Even though Gloss, also a pianist, retired a year ago from being Hancher's box office manager and page-turner for many visiting pianists, he said he would consider coming out of retirement to assist Ax in the future.

'I suppose if he had a recital with a chamber orchestra or a musician like (cellist) Yo-Yo Ma ...

If I was asked, I would probably do it,” Gloss said, while standing next to nine feet of shiny ebony concert grand piano, for which he and Ide donated $50,000. Swanson is busy raising funds for the remainder of the $130,000 cost.

The gleaming, versatile Steinway is on display in West Music's Coralville showroom until it takes its rightful place at Hancher Auditorium, set to open next fall. The public is welcome to stop by and see the showpiece instrument.

But don't touch. That's by invitation only.

Gloss, Ide and Davis made the piano sing during a recent Gazette interview, and this reporter even got to noodle a little bit, to feel the smooth, beautiful action of the keyboard and the lovely sound of its voice.

‘A huge sound'

'Because it's going to have so many uses in the hall, we were looking for a piano with a lot of variety and that would be usable for jazz, classical, for chamber music, for soloists, for playing with an orchestra,” Gloss explained. 'There was one piano that just had a huge sound, and it would probably have been too strong for a chamber music recital.”

He said the priority was 'finding an instrument with a beautiful sound and good balance of brilliance and resonance, to meet all kinds of needs of music that's going to be performed there.”

Why Steinway? 'Because it's the best!” he exclaimed.

The Hancher group got to tour the factory and see the quality-control testing in action. The group examined five pianos before making the final selection. While Davis travels to the factory about six times a year, this visit was a first for Gloss and Ide.

'To be in a room with five concert grands and to be able to pick one out was pretty amazing because you only see one by itself most of the time,” Gloss said. 'We narrowed it down to two, and everybody went back and forth. We liked both of them and finally just decided on this one. Manny played a couple more things, and we said, ‘Oh, we like this one.'”

'It's a difficult process because they're all so amazing, and each one has their own personality,” Davis added. 'At the end, it just seems that one just rises to the top a little more than the rest of them. That's the way it always works, and everybody pretty much agreed at the end, on that piano. It's an amazing process.”

Hancher's 1979 Steinway was moved shortly before the 2008 flood that destroyed the auditorium, but was damaged in 2014 when water pipes burst in its temporary storage building downtown.

Ide said he and Gloss wanted to 'give back in some way” after retiring and had been thinking about a piano. So when Swanson approached them about donating toward a new signature instrument, Ide said that 'just seemed perfect.”

'And this will be right at the heart of all the music-making onstage,” he said. 'What could be better?”

'When people who work at an institution for years - 35-plus years - when they want to give back in a way like this, it's most significant,” Swanson said. 'It's a wonderful part of the story. Their significant gift shows their true commitment and love to Hancher. This will live on and be there for a long, long time ...

'This brings us one step closer to new building, which is exciting,” he added. 'It's one of those most special stories in terms of development of this new building.”