SALISBURY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) – With a stunning backdrop at Catawba College, students like Justin Gerstle tickle the ivories.
Inside the Omwake-Dearborn Chapel, he dares to dream.
“My goal is to become a recording and touring singer-songwriter eventually. That would be really nice,” Gerstle told Queen City News.
Catawba is already one of the top college music programs in the Southeast. Moving forward, the Salisbury institution wants to give students more access to technology that will help make them better musicians.
At the same time, the campus also embraces a brand with which it has a long-running connection.
Here on campus, music students get the keys to a world-class instrument, a Steinway & Sons piano.
“It is like a fine-tuned machine,” says Dr. Phillip Burgess, dean of Performing Arts. “If you are a musician, you know the minute you are sitting in front of a Steinway.”
There are a dozen such pianos on campus.
Whether you’re about to graduate like Gerstle, or are a first-year music student like Gyan Mclaurin, having access to a Steinway is a grand way to level the playing field.
“It feels like I am playing something that has been played by many people that I really look up to,” said Mclaurin.
Catawba College plans a fundraising campaign to buy more of them to become an All-Steinway School, a distinction 200 campuses have around the world.
“It would put us up with the greatest musical institutions around the nation, that’s for sure,” Gerstle says.
The college has a long history with prominent pianos.
Burgess shows off the relic built in 1885.
“It is a beautiful, beautiful, Rosewood Steinway,” he said.
In 1906, it was purchased by the Catawba College president.
“It’s just a gem for me to play,” Burgess says. “And I really love playing that instrument because I see that instrument and realize how far we’ve come.”
The Steinway Spirio model that we saw in the Omwake-Dearborn Chapel is indicative of the progress. It’s a mash-up of the old and the new, connected to an iPad.
“It’s a good learning tool,” said Mclaurin.
“You can watch videos of playing Steinways and it will project onto the piano in real time,” he said scrolling through the iPad screen. “And in real time, it’ll play it on the Steinway.”
The Spirio can also play Gyan’s recordings.
He can see and watch precisely how he played it, and students can do the same with artists around the world.
“To be able to see everything from how they use the pedal, to how they can create a beautiful rich tone through their touch. And all in real time right in front of you,” says Gerstle.
“The amount of fine-tuning that they can get from the slightest touch of any performer around the world in real time is just mind-boggling,” Burgess explains.
“I don’t know it feels like magic a little bit,” Mclaurin said.
Catawba College wants to make the most of the magic behind the music. The brand recognition that comes with a Steinway sets a high bar.
“Get to a level where you feel almost worthy of sitting down to an instrument like this to play on it,” Gerstle says.
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