Awarded to Hana from Clarkston, MI
"Hana is a Junior and has been studying with me since she was four years old. She has been an active musician by joining the Clarkston High School Orchestra and by volunteering as a performer at the retirement house in the Troy area since she was in Elementary school. To add, she has won first place at numerous local piano solo and concerto competitions, and achieved the Superior ( highest rating) rating for the past twelve years at Michigan Federation Festivals. During the pandemic, she has been the most active student to participate in our donation efforts for frontline workers at Beaumont Hospital. Thanks to her continuous dedication in piano lessons, we were able to donate some funds and PPE to Beaumont. She hopes to continue giving back to the community with her musical talent and believes that her enthusiasm for music will connect and help people."
Ayoko Young - ay3724@yahoo.com
THE PIANO PLACE SILENT SCHOLARSHIP
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Every year, tens of thousands of adults decide that this is finally the year they learn piano. Some were told as children that they had no talent. Some simply never had access to an instrument. Many watched a video online — a performance so beautiful or so unexpectedly moving that the only reasonable response was to find out what it would take to do that themselves.
Walk through any piano showroom today and ask the staff what's bringing new customers through the door. The answer, with surprising frequency, is a name — Yunchan Lim — or a platform — TikTok. The viral explosion of classical piano performance on short-form video is not a marketing campaign dreamed up by record labels or conservatories. It is an organic, viewer-driven phenomenon that is reshaping who listens to classical music, who buys pianos, and what they want to play when they get home.
Piano manufacturing is, by its nature, a materials-intensive craft. A modern grand piano contains roughly 12,000 individual components. It requires carefully selected hardwoods — spruce, maple, beech, walnut — sourced from forests in multiple countries. It uses felt, leather, metal alloys, and chemical finishes. Building one well takes skilled labor spanning months.