Steinway & Sons - SPIRIO
If we’re fortunate, most of us hear great artists only from a distance—from the balcony of a concert hall, the back of a club, a stadium—admired but untouchable. But what if it were possible to hear the world’s greatest pianists live in your living room? An iconic American piano maker has brought this vision to reality.
STEINWAY & SONS, makers of the finest pianos in the world, has been a New York original since 1853. Founded by German immigrant Henry E. Steinway and his sons in a small loft in Manhattan, the company expanded its manufacturing operations to Queens, New York in the 1870s. The historic STEINWAY Astoria factory is the headquarters of one of the greatest American success stories ever written—a story about a company committed to exquisite craftsmanship, unrivaled musicality, and continuous improvement through technology.
In 2015, STEINWAY launched one of its most significant product innovations in recent years—the incredible SPIRIO—hands down the world’s finest high resolution player piano. Handcrafted with a rich color palette, warmth, and resonance, SPIRIO unlocks the STEINWAY experience regardless of playing ability, revealing the true essence, nuance, and soulfulness of a live performance.
SPIRIO quickly expanded STEINWAY & SONS from its irrefutable position as a 167-year-old American musical icon with an obsession for quality to a leader in innovation and player piano technology. The original “playback” SPIRIO—also a fully playable STEINWAY grand piano—was joined in 2019 by the launch of SPIRIO | r, which is now capable of playback plus live performance recording. SPIRIO is available in STEINWAY grand piano Model B and Model M. SPIRIO | r is available in STEINWAY grand piano Model D and Model B.
A FULLY PLAYABLE STEINWAY
First and foremost, SPIRIO pianos can be played like any other STEINWAY, the instrument artists have chosen for over 167 years for its broad palette, warmth and depth of tone, powerful resonance, and unmatched touch response.
Much like the megapixel revolution of the digital camera, SPIRIO | r offers exclusive high-resolution recording, preserving all the music: every dynamic level from infinitesimal gradations of hammer velocity, and every shade of resonance from proportional pedaling—now at your fingertips. The artisans at STEINWAY & SONS seamlessly install SPIRIO | r technology at the time of manufacture, ensuring no alteration in the musical performance nor compromise in the instrument’s beauty.
The STEINWAY SPIRIO allows you to hear concertizing artists from the comfort of your home. Using an advanced player piano system supported by a Bluetooth-enabled iPad app, the user has access to an expansive music library. The majority of pieces are pre-recorded by elite STEINWAY Artists at a specially equipped STEINWAY studio in New York, but there are historical performances available as well. Some of the featured performers include Lang Lang, Yuja Wang, Olga Kern, Bill Charlap, Billie Eilish, Billy Joel, and Ramsey Lewis, as well as immortal artists like Sergei Rachmaninoff, George Gershwin, and Vladimir Horowitz.
When a user selects music from the app, SPIRIO performs the artist’s exact keystrokes, making SPIRIO the only player piano in the world that can bring live music played by STEINWAY Artists into a listener’s own home. The music library continues to grow each month as new recordings and video performances are added to the library at no additional charge.
PLAY, RECORD, LISTEN, EDIT
SPIRIO | r permits users to record and listen to performances in stunning state-of-the-art high resolution — with all the nuance, power, and passion on display. Simple, intuitive controls offer the ability to save and share user-created recordings in multiple file formats including SPIRIO high resolution, MIDI, and MP3 high quality sampled audio.
Native to the SPIRIO app, the SPIRIO editor provides the world’s only advanced iPad–based high resolution editing capabilities to SPIRIO files, allowing users to edit every detail of their SPIRIO recordings. SPIRIO editing features include the ability to modify note velocity (dynamic); modify note duration (start- and end-times); correct wrong notes (remove or replace); modify pedal data (sustain and shift); and delete or add time.
“Buying a piano does not have to mean waiting for a pianist to play it at home,” said Lang Lang, STEINWAY Artist and STEINWAY SPIRIO Ambassador. “It’s a major leap, a milestone — with superb craftsmanship.”
Every STEINWAY piano (including SPIRIO) is a marvel of fine hand-craftsmanship and design which takes nearly a year to make. It begins with only the finest quality solid woods selected and seasoned for up to two years before the piano is crafted. The skills required to build a STEINWAY have been handed down from master to apprentice, generation after generation, to fulfill Henry E. Steinway’s wish “to build the best piano possible.” Today STEINWAY is the choice of ninety-eight percent of concertizing artists, none of whom are compensated to endorse the instrument.
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