Page 21 - 2015 New Harmony Music Festival Program Book

LOOKING FORWARD & DARING TO DREAM...
SOME WORDS ON FUTURE PROJECTS FROM THE DIRECTOR

The Pressler Piano Weekend & Competition

Many of us are familiar with the Jacobs School Of Music at Indiana University, if for no other reason than for the
fact that four students from the Jacobs School joined festival musicians this last April for our Thomas Jefferson
concert. It was then that pianist and graduate assistant Ilya Friedberg and I began discussing the fact that so little
new art music is being composed for the piano, and how it would be wonderful to commission some new works to be
premiered at the New Harmony Music Festival!

Standing atop the Meier Atheneum exploring our mutual dream, Ilya and I at once, conceived a weekend of piano
music in New Harmony featuring the gifted students of his mentor-professor at IU, the world-renowned pianist,
Menahem Pressler. The students would share their gifts by performing new piano compositions as a part of a
competition for new music, with the finals concert being broadcast live over the radio for listeners at IU and across the
state, with prize money awarded to the top three finalists and of course the chance to have additional performances of
the winners’ work at the following summer music festival. Be sure to follow this story! Dates for the first Pressler Piano
Weekend & Competition will be announced this coming Fall! If you are going to have a piano weekend, you need
pianos! Soooo...
Corbin Family Piano To Be Restored/Placed In Historic Thralls Opera House!

In 1949, Helen Corbin Heinl, the daughter of Richard Corbin and descendant of John Corbin of New Harmony,
sold what we now call The Maclure House to Kenneth Dale Owen and his wife, the former Jane Blaffer Owen.
Ms. Corbin Heinl was an accomplished concert pianist who, when she departed the Maclure House, took her precious,
custom-made Steinway Model B piano. The grand mahogany-cased instrument remained in the Corbin Family until
recently, when MHCs niece, Mary Ann Corbin Lindner, and her daughter Margaret Herring of Columbus, Ohio
approached me with a desire to see the historic Corbin Family instrument return to New Harmony.

In July of 2014, following last year’s festival, I sat with Mary Ann Corbin Lindner in a golf cart in front of Jerry Wade’s
house on South Main Street. Her sparkling white hair and piercing blue eyes were unfazed by the withering heat
of July in New Harmony! Though frail in body and weary with many years, it was clear to me that this grand lady’s
determination to pay one last visit to New Harmony, to find a home for her Aunt’s piano, AND our meeting was no
coincidence. In a matter of minutes, arrangements were made to have the Helen Corbin Heinl piano donated to the
Music Festival & School and it’s parent organization, The New Harmony Artists Guild. Thus a wonderful journey of
discovery and no small effort began. First, the piano had to be retrieved from storage in Columbus, and the Corbin’s and
Herrings offered to pay the cartage and the instrument had to be inspected by our restoration man. That’s when my real
work began....

The bad news was that the instrument was in very “rough” shape after so many years of storage, but the good
news was that the needed parts could be found after a long search that led right back to New Harmony: Historic
New Harmony had an instrument that was in even worse shape that could supply the needed parts, and so another
organization began to help the project! Best of all, the festival has now entered into a discussion with The Indiana State
Museum & Historic Sites, and preliminary agreements have been laid-out so that this wonderful old instrument, once
restored, will have a home on the stage of the Historic Thrall’s Opera House. NHMF&S is now ready to announce that
we have set a fundraising goal of $30,000.00 over the next 12 months, to insure the restoration of the Corbin Family
Piano, and it’s ongoing upkeep, when it finally comes HOME to New Harmony, Indiana.

Please feel free to contact me with your stories about the piano and your gift of support to the music festival for this
important restoration project!
-Christopher Layer, Director

July 2015 <<< 20