Two years ago, Dr Sarah Nicolls — a world-class concert pianist specialising in new music — launched First Light Pianos (FLP), a venture designed to bring the acoustic piano into the 21st century, making a product which was lightweight and space-saving without compromising on performance. Some 600,000 acoustic pianos are […]
Piano
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At first thought, mapping a suitably-equipped digital piano’s output to the MIDI standard seems like child’s play, certainly compared to other keyboard instruments, synths and the like which can generate and transmit far more musical data. The Issue A standard piano really only needs to transmit the note number being […]
For just over three months during autumn and winter, visitors to the South Bank Centre in London can experience a virtual reality piano concert featuring an avatar of internationally-recognised pianist Yuja Wang. Playing with Fire: An Immersive Odyssey sees visitors wearing a VR headset for the 45-minute performance, where they […]
This summer, NUX launched its portable digital piano, the NPK-200, offering a decent playing experience in a transportable form factor. A lot of portable pianos don’t put in full piano action keyboards, partly due to their weight, but the NPK-200 features the WKJ-03 triple-sensor scaled hammer action keyboard with escapement […]
Yamaha has announced a new member of its GC series of more compact acoustic grand pianos: the GCB, coming 16 years after the GC1, GC2 and GB1K lunched in 2009. Compact is a relative term, of course, and you’ll still need a sizeable space to accommodate any grand piano. That […]
With the introduction of Roland’s latest portable digital piano in the FP range, the FP-40, we take a look at the feature set of the entire current range and compare their specifications. Note that the FP series goes back to the 1990s with the FP-8 from 1991. The FP-4 and […]
Roland has announced the latest in its FP line of portable digital pianos — the FP-40 — along with a free Piano Sphere app developed in partnership with the Skoove piano learning method. FP-40 The FP-40 features expressive sound, enhanced with the dynamic onboard speaker system, housed in a compact […]
A Yamaha C3 grand piano used by Queen’s Freddy Mercury, among other great musicians, is to be auctioned as part of the Reinhold Mack Collection of artefacts in October. The Yamaha C3 in question is from Munich’s Musicland Studios, and was extensively played by Freddie Mercury when composing both solo […]
This year’s New Orleans International Piano Competition, whose 30th edition ran from July 18-26, has announced its winners. In first place came Evgeny Konnov (Russia), followed by Shangru Du (China) and Adria Ye (USA). The Jury Discretionary Award when to Yu-Ang Fan (China). The Best Performance of the Commissioned Work […]
Kawai‘s professional range of acoustic upright pianos in their K series feature a contemporary design and quality tone, designed for all ability levels and particularly where space is at a premium. These should not be confused with the K series of synthesisers from the 1980s, which are very different instruments. […]
Update: GO:KEYS 3 Minions is now available. Roland has announced the imminent arrival of a Minions themed version of its popular GO:KEYS 3 entry-level digital piano. As you’d expect, it’s decked out in banana yellow and features illustrated graphics from the hit franchise. As well as the GO:KEYS 3 existing […]
Yamaha has announced the launch of four new digital pianos in its ARIUS range, aimed at an entry-level audience and including two standard and two slim upright models. The new models are: Though marketed as lower end models, they do include newly designed keyboard, sensors and speaker system, offering a […]
Yamaha has launched three models in a new B Series upright acoustic piano family, namely the B10, B20 and B30, which as well as the base model are also available as SILENT and TransAcoustic pianos. The B Series builds on the b series, highly recognised in Europe, and offering it […]
We might all aspire to owning an acoustic grand piano, but the main issue (after expense) is finding the space to accommodate one. I used to have lessons with a lady who dedicated her entire front room to a baby grand piano, and there was barely the room for anything […]
Introduction The Yamaha AvantGrand series is a range of hybrid pianos first introduced in 2009. It features eight models: The N1X, NU1XA, N2 and N3X are the four current models. What is a hybrid piano? A hybrid piano is one which combines genuine acoustic piano keys and hammers, as found […]
Channel 4 in the UK has announced a fourth series of popular reality series The Piano will come to screens soon. Hosted by Claudia Winkleman (Traitors) and singer-songwriters John Batiste and MIKA, this year the show — which discovers amateur pianists from around Britain and has them performing on public […]
Introduction If you’re looking to buy a new digital piano, it can be both daunting and exciting in equal measure. So many models to choose from. Different high-quality manufacturers posting slick videos of their instruments in spotless locations, perfectly recorded audio demos, and a long list of features and specifications […]
KORG has announced the second Poetry digital piano — the Poetry Magnifique — to sit alongside the Poetry which launched in January last year. It shares many of the same specifications as the Poetry but has a slightly different construction and more connection options. It also has a more powerful […]
Bösendorfer Canada has announced a three-day exhibition of hand-crafted pianos, taking place 23-25 October at Koerner Hall in Toronto. It’s part of the centennial celebrations of the birth of legendary Canadian jazz musician Oscar Peterson. On display will be The Tree of Life, Camellia, and The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, […]
Eric Lu of the USA has been voted the winner of the 19th International Chopin piano competition, which began on 2nd October and was held in Warsaw, Poland. The 17-member jury voted as follows: In addition, special prizes are as follows: The auditions for the 19th International Fryderyk Chopin Piano […]