{"id":103523,"date":"2021-03-30T15:01:05","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T19:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=103523"},"modified":"2022-09-29T11:27:13","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T15:27:13","slug":"piano-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2021\/03\/30\/piano-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Piano project"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Melissa Yanchak, staff musical director in the Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures, played the Theatre Program’s new Yamaha piano while working remotely with Alexis Weihe, a sophomore musical theatre major.<\/p><\/div>\n

Thanks to a Students First Fund grant from the Wright State University Foundation, the Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures<\/a> has a new Yamaha piano to enhance the teaching and learning experience for faculty and students.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, the department launched \u201cThe Piano Project\u201d with the goal of refurbishing or replacing its entire fleet of pianos. The pianos provide accompaniment to around 200 students each year in classes, private singing lessons, rehearsals and performances.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are among the most used pieces of educational equipment that we have,\u201d said Joe Deer, artistic director and chair of the Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures. \u201cWe use these pianos a lot, but we have never had a sustained or targeted initiative to upgrade that whole fleet of pianos. It was time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deer said the Students First Fund<\/a> grant played an instrumental role in the department\u2019s endeavor to refurbish, replace or retire existing pianos in the fleet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout the Students First Fund, I am confident that we never would have gotten the traction that we needed,\u201d said Deer. \u201cThe grant served as a seed to encourage other people to contribute, and it gave us the leverage we needed to begin meaningfully changing the quality of the piano and musical experience that our students are having on a daily basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

After utilizing the $6,000 Students First Fund grant \u2014 which was awarded in spring 2020 \u2014 to purchase the new Yamaha piano, Deer leveraged an additional $6,000 in donor contributions and student fees to refurbish six pianos.<\/p>\n

During a refurbishment, the entire keyboard mechanism in the piano is pulled out to be inspected and repaired. The hammers are also replaced, the key action is cleaned and lubricated, and new felt is installed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Due to COVID-19 safety protocol, vocal coaching has to be done remotely via Zoom.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like getting a 70,000-mile tune up done on the piano,\u201d Deer said. \u201cSome of them ultimately need to be retired. They have been beaten to death for more than 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deer hopes to refurbish three additional pianos over the course of the next year.<\/p>\n

Anyone wanting to support \u201cThe Piano Project\u201d may contribute to the Theatre Arts Program Fund at wright.edu\/give\/tdmp<\/a> or by contacting Joe Deer at joe.deer@wright.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The new Yamaha piano will enhance the teaching and learning experience for faculty and students. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":103597,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,4859,2040,747,715,4843],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-fine-and-performing-arts","category-giving","category-liberal-arts","category-news","category-students-first-fund"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103523"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103795,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103523\/revisions\/103795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}