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Bösendorfer 214VC
UKARIA acquired its mellow and sensitive Bösendorfer Model 214VC in mid-2016, which had pride of place on the Cultural Centre’s stage until 2023, when it found a new home in the rehearsal space at our Twin Peaks accommodation. The following page tells a little of the Bösendorfer’s story, which is further elaborated on in Dylan Henderson’s article, Choosing No. 7, attached below.
We were very fortunate to have Christoph Eggner, the pianist of the Eggner Trio, on hand to personally visit the Bösendorfer factory in June 2016 and select the instrument that would soon find its home at UKARIA Cultural Centre on the other side of the world in the Adelaide Hills. ‘There were three pianos to choose from,’ Christoff Eggner recalls. ‘After my first contact with all of them, my heartbeat was for No. 7, and this impression stayed the same and was easy to confirm after two hours,’ he told Alison Beare. ‘The sound was the most noble and distinguished one – and I guess will be the most appropriate one for your concert hall. Further, the mechanic is extremely reactive and sensitive to play: it will be a joy for everyone!’
An instrument thus selected, it was time for our Founder and Director Ulrike Klein and CEO Alison Beare, who were in Austria for the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival, to visit the factory before the piano was boxed up to begin its voyage to Australia. To stroll through the Bösendorfer factory is to bear witness to a profound process of creation and craftsmanship. From the woodworking and construction of the cast iron plate, to the thousands of individual parts that comprise the action, to finalising and voicing and the construction of the inner rim, and then finally the finish – it was an unforgettable journey. ‘We found the factory tour fascinating and it has given us a wonderful insight into the instrument which now lives with us at UKARIA Cultural Centre,’ Alison Beare said. ‘It meant so much to "meet" our piano and understand where it is coming from. To know how much care has gone into this instrument is deeply touching,’ she told Bösendorfer Sales Representative Pascal Siegl.
For our first official piano recital on Sunday 13 November 2016, we invited internationally acclaimed Australian pianist Piers Lane – the [then] Artistic Director of the Sydney International Piano Competition – to officially christen our new Bösendorfer. He performed an electrifying program including Mozart’s Sonata in B flat major, K.333, Beethoven’s immortal Sonata No.23 in F minor, Op. 57 ‘Appassionata’, a selection of Carl Vine’s The Anne Landa Preludes, Chopin’s Ballade No.3 in A flat major, Op. 47, and concluded with Liszt’s Venezia e Napoli.