CAUT

Hello All!

I have been asked by the director of the School of Music at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, to research how other universities fund their piano fleet. Here at UBC we have an old and worn out fleet of about 100 pianos. We get no annual funding from the university at all for pianos and are expected to rely on donations and fund raising. This seems wrong to me as pianos are a core need of the school (like computers in science programs) and I feel the university should fund them. If 5% of the the fleet were replaced every year we would have the pianos on a 20 year replacement plan, which I think is about right. If the fleet has a retail replacement value of, say, $5,000,000 then the annual cost of the plan would be $250,000. Are there any schools which work on anything like this sort of plan?

In general, I am interested in what major schools in the US and Canada do to manage their piano fleets. Any information as to how the schools you work in deal with this is much appreciated.

Thank you!

Scott Harker

So nice to hear from you.  

First off I am so glad that you are thinking along the lines of replacement.  The 20 year plan seems about right based upon other institutions' work.

Second let's move this discussion to the CAUT forum on the my.ptg.org website.  I would encourage you to visit there and there are many resources.  

Your above open a whole can of worms.    We were having a discussion about the purchase of a new Yamaha Disklavier just after the U of O announced that we were to curtail non "mission critical" purchases.  I like that term a lot as it speaks to the importance of the equipment basic to the School of Music and Dance just like your computer example above.  

As for funding I have seen many different examples to success:

1.  The University Loan programs available through a number of different manufacturers

2.  Steinway and others have 5-7 year lease to purchase programs (or used to)

3.  Donors can only do so much and in many cases would like to have a brass plaque installed on the piano--difficult to sell in a practice room but easier on the high ticket items like performance pianos

4.  General donation as a music department wide project--Was part of one of these at Luther College.  They had raised about $500K to work with.  We were able to improve about half of the inventory with those funds.  We left a few behind but overall a substantial improvement.  The way this worked was because of one man principally.  His name was Weston Noble and he was the Luther College Choir director for over 50 years.  Such a nice man and no one could say no.  When he was on the phone with you money would move!!!!

5.  As you are suggesting above a more incremental approach can be successful.  Administration likes the forward looking approach so that items like pianos and such can be part of a large picture budget with adequate funding sought.  Overall inventory for us is about $6.5 M.  Other schools might be a bit more or a bit less.  

6.  Make sure you are great friends with the development (fund raising) folks.  You can let them know of the needs and very often they can search out suitable donors.  We have one who donates to a Piano Repair/Rebuilding Fund.  Others have contributed since it holds a title on the list and it now holds quite a lot of cash.  We have been able to rebuild three pianos with that money saving a bundle vs. new instruments.  The sales staffs hate this but it's the university's funds.  

7.  Make sure they have a copy of the Guidelines For Institutional Maintenance available from the home office.  It's a great resource and with it held in your own hand you can arrive at a formula for service/replacements

8.  Generate a spreadsheet list of the instruments, their age, condition, donor source if there is one etc.  This is a huge help in obtaining instruments as places instruments in an obvious way on the list.  You can also manipulate the list to emphasize certain aspects.  The two I use the most are age and condition.  Average age of the instruments here is about 34 years.  Other places will have a much older average and some less.  

9.  Ain't gonna happen without the support of the faculty, especially the piano faculty

While I can't comment on the various ways that universities fund their programs, I think we can comment on the responsibility of UBC to its students to give them the best tools they can.  

Would you like to move this to the CAUT site or would you like me to introduce this to the group.  There will be many great responses.

Mike Reiter

Piano Technician

University of Oregon School of Music and Dance

College and University Technicians Committee Chair

253-820-1197

A further comment on the above regarding Luther College.  Just before my arrival they had started the "Piano Improvement Fund".  Thinking they could have come up with a glitzier name but it in fact worked quite well.  The impetus for the project, however, is WHY it was started in the first place.  They had received an unfavorable accreditation report.  That's great fodder to get things rolling for sure!!!  Upon my arrival they had already sent one of the concert instruments to Patrick DeBelso (great job BTW) and had added a dozen new practice rooms in the dorms using Wenger modular studios.  They had purchased Yamaha Studios and three Hailuns.  They all worked out great.  With the remaining funds in hand we were able to purchase/rebuild instruments and not have to go through purchasing or committees.  It's one of the advantages of a private/non-state institution.  

We felt we were quite smart about the distribution of the funds and were able to purchase good condition used instruments locally.  At the time there were a number of them online.  We found a Steinway L in a high-rise Chicago apt on Marine Dr because the owner had purchased the piano several years earlier for their 8 year old and he lost interest after a couple of years.  The piano was like new at about 1/3 the price of new.  'Twas a great deal for the school.  Would like to have seen the dining room set she was wishing to buy with the proceeds!!!!  OOOLALA!!

With those funds we rebuilt over 10 pianos including SBs, purchased the 12 uprights, replaced 15-20 actions, refinished several, replaced two keyboards and purchased a new M&H A for a practice room.  We moved about half of the inventory around in the building as we did the work.  That's about 60 pianos out of the 120.  

Mike R