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The grand piano at the venerable Washington Auditorium has served dutifully for decades.
Countless concerts, plays, student assemblies, talent shows have been enhanced by this durable instrument.
A few of the many accomplished Ely pianists who have directed the piano to produce music, some big -- some touching, some triumphant, and all inspiring include Elyites Catherine Merhar, Irene Hartfield, Ina Dunstan, Marsha Marolt Tholen, and Susan Floyd Germek.
Irene is a classmate from 1967 who has performed in New York and other noteworthy venues.
Our family was blessed to have her play at my mother’s services as she soloed and accompanied Frank Levar, a fine baritone/tenor from the class of 76.
Catherine Merhar played with a ready smile -- any song in any key. A true improvisational virtuoso.
Many Ely piano students studied under Ina Dunstan at her home on Conan Street. Ina toured northern Europe with the Suomi College Choir in the early 60s.
The Washington Auditorium piano has been there at least since the 60s and maybe longer. It continues to serve. On its custom casters, it gets wheeled out from its storage spot off the stage.
Sometimes onto that stage, other times it gets lowered onto the orchestra pit where it fills the air with its big sound.
And that big sound is no accident.
It’s little known that that piano requires a special technique for tuning. Now you would think that to tune a piano, you merely need an electronic tuner that can read the frequency of any tone.
For example Middle C should be 256 cycles per second. But you can’t just plunk each note on the keyboard and tighten or loosen pegs to get the right number.
Grand pianos have 230 strings for the 88 notes they can produce. All must all be tuned to be happy with each other. Also, tightening strings can distort the frame causing already-tuned notes to go out of tune. Piano tuning is a delicate art.
The Washington Auditorium grand lives in a unique environment and needs treatment other pianos do not. Some think it’s affected by the cold, dry winter air that invades the auditorium down the west ramp. Or the magnetic field in the area due to the unmined seams of hematite below the city. Others have opined that the piano’s mechanisms were made during a worldwide shortage of a secret admixture causing the unique and precious sound of this instrument.
Whatever makes this grand so special it also makes it difficult to tune and only the most experienced and attentive tuners can bring out the perfect intervals we all enjoy.
I had the good luck back in junior high to be in there one lunch hour when the tuner was there. He was a greying, slender fellow with a kind, but limited smile who identified himself as Robert Opurnokety. He tolerated my questions as he tapped his tuning fork and worked his tuning hammer. It was Mr. O who told me about the unique nature of this particular instrument and disclosed that this was the only one he ever encountered that required the extra step of sterning -- a technique he learned at Julliard.
He tried to explain sterning to me but my junior high mind was unable to grasp all the physics involved.
But I do remember how wonderful the piano sounded when he had finished.
I guess I should have expected that since when Opurnokety tunes, he leaves no tone un-sterned.
04 01 2024 Doug Luthanen grew up in Ely and graduated from Memorial High School in 1967. He wrote a weekly viewpoint column for the Northwest Arkansas Times for four years and is an occasional contributor to The Ely Echo.
