Grand Piano Gifted By the Sisters of St Joseph

Recently I had the privilege of meeting with Sister Maree and seeing our new College Grand piano that has been gifted to Holy Cross College.

The Sisters of St Joseph are regular special guests of Holy Cross College. Last year at our Annual Celebration Evening I played, “Suscipe of Catherine McCauley” which I wrote the accompaniment and sang a harmony part, with student Bella Gethin singing the melody. The Sisters of St Joseph decided to give us the piano as they loved the rendition of the piece and thought our school would love to make good use of this wonderful instrument.

Evegeny Moukine, a specialist piano restorer, met with us to see what work needs to be done on this beautiful instrument.  Evgeny now has this beautiful piano working, fully tuned and has almost completed all the repair work plus fixing all the genuinne ivory keys that were sticking. He asked if I could buy a good wood polish to bring up the Mahogany wood finish of the piano and I have started doing that part up myself.

Sister Maree and I looked into the history of the piano and here is what we found out.

The piano is:

C Bechstein model A

185cm from keys to the back of the piano

Built in 1920

Serial number is: 100978

Ivory Keys and mahogany wood

It has 85 keys not the usual 88.

I was also given the music in the piano stool and the key which I have tasked my husband to clean for us.

The piano is almost fully restored with two strings to be attached once delivered from Sydney where we sent one to have another hand made.

We hope to have the Sisters of St Joseph visit our Holy Cross College again for a morning or afternoon tea with our Chamber Choir and perhaps a soloist or two perform for them, to say a BIG ‘Thank you!’ for our beautiful and extraordinary gift.

Regards,

Kerri Slopper