Dennis,
I'm presuming you are referring to Steinway. I was told by a former Steinway employee maybe 10 years ago that someone from the C&A department in Manhattan would go to the factory from time to time and look over what pianos were available in the selection room. The tech would evaluate the pianos available primarily from the standpoint of the belly work; tonal quality, sustain, power.
Then the piano would be taken to the basement and the action would be reworked (often with new action parts, and almost always with new hammers) and the piano would be marked with a 'C' number.
This was one person's version of it, but it was from a person who had worked for some years in the concert department, so it should be accurate.
For Kawai America almost every Shigeru concert grand we receive from Japan is opened and prepped for concert use. Really, though, every piano is prepped in Japan to be performance ready, so we don't have to do all that much work to get them ready – we sometimes change the voicing level for particular needs, and tweak the action to make up for the changes that happen during shipping. We only receive 4 or 5 Shigeru EX pianos each year for all of North America, so we tend to really need to put them to use for a while before they are sold. And we sometimes do run out of concert pianos!
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Don Mannino RPT
Kawai America Corporation
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Original Message:
Sent: 12-10-2018 21:30
From: Dennis Johnson
Subject: C&A Pianos
Hi All-
Does anyone know when or how specifically in the manufacturing process that a piano gets to be labeled as a C&A instrument? Are they chosen from the beginning and set aside as such, or during the process of building are certain ones selected for various reasons? There must be some process of selection and I don't believe it's random. Our department has been approved with funds to select a new concert grand for the hall and since we already have plenty of "nice" pianos, the faculty are determined to hunt down and find something really special. This question about C&A pianos came up and I admit I really don't know exactly how that works. We're open to remanufactured pianos also, but only finished projects this time. There is also interest in a Hamburg D if an appropriate, relatively new one was available for sale, but who knows. I know that's unlikely.
thanks!
Dennis.
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Dennis Johnson, R.P.T.
Piano Technician
Music Dept.
St. Olaf College