Expensive pianos damaged while moving

Transporting expensive concert pianos is a skilled activity that is carried out by experienced movers. However, there are times when mishaps happen and expensive pianos get damaged while moving. Here we take a look at some expensive pianos that were damaged while transporting.

In case, you were planning to move your piano on your own, do consider yourself warned. And if you are planning to travel by air with your instrument, do follow these tips.

Movers drop $200,000 Fazioli piano

Leading Canadian classical pianist Angela Hewitt’s prized Fazioli F278 concert grand piano was damaged recently by movers. The Fazioli F278 concert grand piano, the only one in the world to have four pedals, has been damaged beyond repair.

The piano, which was kept at her home in Italy, has been estimated to be over $200,000 (£155,000) by pianopricepoint.com.

The iron frame is broken, as well as much else in the structure and action (not to mention the lid and other parts of the case),” she wrote on Facebook. “It’s kaput.”

The pianist is in the process of recovering the insurance amount, and hopes to travel to Sacile, Italy, (where Faziolis are made) soon to pick a new Fazioli.

Beautiful Grand Piano left in Dumpster for Waste

Piano technician Dean May found a grand piano left in a dumpster as scrap after being informed by members of the community. “This is a $10k classic piano that had nothing wrong with it,” explained May in a Facebook post.

May felt that this was a perfectly serviceable keyboard instrument, so he decided to investigate the reasons for it’s dumping. May found out that the piano was dumped by Indiana State University (ISU). It seems the University were opting for digital pianos as they wanted to cut maintenance costs.

Read: Piano care and maintenance

Later, ISU issued a statement saying that the university had “repeatedly” tried to donate around ten old pianos to community organizations. They also said the “pianos were virtually beyond repair” and so discarding the pianos was the last option after other options were exhausted.

Read: How pianos work, take a peek inside the piano.

Grand Piano Falls of a Lorry

A Bosendorfer concert grand piano valued at £45,000 was damaged beyond salvaging after it fell off a removal lorry. The piano was being brought to the home of the organisers of the Two Moors Festival, an annual music event in Dartmoor and Exmoor.

The festival had been raising funds for two years to buy this piano at auction in London. The piano was supposed to go into a concert hall at the Adies’ home at Barkham, near South Molton, as a centrepiece for the upcoming spring festival.

The piano weighed about half a tonne, had 10,000 moving parts and had fallen almost 2.5m onto the ground.

While the piano was insured, it was only for £26,000, which the organisers paid for the piano at auction in London, instead of the entire replacement value of £45,000.

Bosendorfers, made in Austria and the preferred choice for several leading pianists, are like the Stradivarius of the piano world; they are simply irreplaceable.

World-traveling pianist damages piano transporting it on San Francisco hill

Davide’s Martello is a traveling pianist who performs for war-torn communities and performs at places that have suffered from natural disasters (or other tragedies). And he takes his beloved piano wherever he goes.

Surprisingly the piano has survived over a decade of travel, even to to high-risk areas such as places in war-torn Afghanistan (and some places in Turkey).

But it was San Francisco’s hills that finally fell Martello’s precious piano (the pictures of the crashed piano was all over the internet).

Since Martello wanted to avoid parking his trailer and van at a meter, which would need to be continuously fed, he parked along Marina Boulevard and decided to transport his piano to a performance in San Francisco– by bike.

In the past, Davide has cycled his piano through disaster zones, so I assume he felt he could manage this time as well. But it didn’t turn out the way he was hoping.

While navigating one of the hills, the brakes on his tiny fold-up electric bike gave way and he lost control. His piano and bench is all Martello’s got, rolled down Bay Street and crashed on the side of the street. The bench and his bike were in shambles. His piano lost legs and suffered some big bang-ups.

After the pictures of the crash went viral, a Berkeley piano shop has offered the traveling pianist a free piano and a free piano bench.

Martello is obvioualy happy. “Seriously? Thank you! Thank you so much! Thank you, oh my God! I just got a bench for free! A free piano to go along with it? A free piano? This can’t be!”

An overwhelmed Martello has started preparing for his next performance. Read more about Martello on his Facebook page.

KeytarHQ Editorial Team

KeytarHQ editorial team includes musicians who write and review products for pianists, keyboardists, guitarists & other musicians. KeytarHQ is the best online resource for information on keyboards, pianos, synths, keytars, guitars and music gear for musicians of all abilities, ages and interests.