Blüthner is in!

The good Dr. Blüthner has graciously offered to conduct the tour of the Blüthner shop in the morning, followed by some wonderful visits to other very exciting places, to be announced shortly.

This is shaping up to be a tour you won't want to miss.
Pianos, music, friends, and Europe.

I expect to have a full itinerary outline and some pricing guidelines early next week. Make sure you add this thread to your watched topics.

This tour sounds amazing and I would love to attend. I will be at a conference in Prague from June 26-29th so selfishly I'd love for the tour to be roughly around those dates so that I can make all or part of it (bc I'm coming from WA state I'm so close!!!) I would love to see the Grotrian factory but haven't seen that mentioned so could try to do that on my own as an offshoot of the rest of the tour. I like the suggestion of the Abel hammer factory - that would be fascinating.

Yeah, what about Abel &/or Renner?
A view of the piano building process from a completely different perspective!

A few thoughts... First, whoever came up with this idea is brilliant and I am interested in going if I have the funds (graduation present to myself, maybe?). My second thought is that while there are already several factories on the list, there are a few unique places that are not:

Finchcocks Keyboard Museum and Hurstwood Farm Pianos. Finchcocks is unique among museums in that visitors can see the instruments in action. Hurstwood, of course, is the birthplace of Phoenix Piano Systems currently used by Steingraeber... also on site is an original Boesendorfer Imperial SE reproducing piano and a Boesendorfer-Moor Imperial (2 manual piano) and the Stuart & Sons pianos. The best part is that these two places are relatively near each other.

Other ideas I have are the Klavins model 370 upright in Germany, the Stemco Crystal Soundboard company in The Netherlands, the Borgato (pedal piano) company in Italy, and Paulello in France. There is also the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg which has one of the largest collections of keyboard instruments anywhere.

Thanks for the post beethoven986,

There are so many wonderful places we could visit we'd need at least
two months just in Germany/Austria. Even though we've pretty much decided on how this tour will go, we're happy to take all suggestions which we could consider for the next tour.

We have a draft of the itinerary for our first tour (June 2011) which I will be posting shortly. Among other sites of interest it takes us to four piano manufacturers shops and a couple of music museums along with some composers places.

The tour is 14 days (with the first and last days being primarily for travel).

Most of the days are quite full, although we have left some afternoons and evenings open for people to do whatever exploring they'd like.

Personally I've never been to Europe so I'm as excited about the opportunity to see the countries, meet the people, take in the architecture and try the food as I am about touring the piano shops.

Details about dates, itinerary, and estimated costs will be posted soon (our travel agency is working hard to coordinate all the pieces).

Here is the Itinerary as we have it so far.

Additional details will be coming as we firm things up and as we talk with the piano companies. For example, Herr Blüthner has indicated in addition to conducting the tour of Blüthner, he would like to take us on a private tour of a music museum and possibly some other sites as well.


The DATES Are 5 June 2011 through 17 June 2011.
For those who wanted to join us and bring their school age children we realize this may conflict with the end of school.

While we certainly cannot presume to advise you on your children's education... What could be more educational then a tour of Europe including it's famous musicians, artists, craftsmen, etc? Point being? Let them miss a couple days of school, they can always write a report about their trip :-)

Note that we tried to leave some free time in the afternoons and/or evenings to allow everyone time to explore on their own. We can of course also continue to explore as a group for those who might be interested.

The ITINERARY

day 0 June 4
Leave home for Hamburg
June 5, 11 Sun
Arrival Airport Hamburg, city orientation tour, no entrance
welcome cocktail, welcome dinner, o/n Hamburg

June 6, 11 Mon
Morning Tour of Hamburg Steinway Piano Factory, PM free
overnight (o/n) Hamburg

June 7, 11, Tue
Full day drive to Bonn via Cologne, to visit the Cathedral
o/n Bonn

June 8, 11 Wed
Morning visit to Beethoven museum, visit with Robin (The Piano Girl) Meloy Goldsby (and tour) o/n Bonn

June 9, 11 Thu
Full-day drive to Leipzig
o/n Leipzig

June 10, 11 Fri
Half-day tour of Blüthner Piano Facilities hosted by Dr. Blüthner. Evening at leisure (Herr Blüthner has indicated he would like to treat us to some other wonderful sights, more later).
o/n Leipzig

June 11, 11 Sat
To Bayreuth, arrival around lunch time, Visits to Wagner and Liszt Museums
o/n Bayreuth

June 12, 11 Sun
Full-day excursion to Nürnberg (Germanistic National museum, collection of
historic music instruments) & Rothenburg, walking tour (Sunday all shops and
companies are closed).
o/n Bayreuth

June 13, 11 Mon
AM Tour of Steingräber u. Söhne Piano conducted by Udo Steingräber , PM to Munich
o/n Munich

June 14, 11 Tue
AM Munich city tour including the Deutsches Museum (which houses one of the
world’s largest musical instrument collections, with a performance of the
music of Mozart on an original piano of his time and comparative
demonstrations on instruments from subsequent time periods) and the National
theater (where we have applied for a visit behind the scenes).

PM drive to Salzburg, upon arrival we have a 2 hour walking tour with local
Salzburg guide (compulsory) and visit the Mozart Haus, the birthplace of
Mozart.o/n Salzburg

June 15, 11 Wed
Morning drive to Vienna, arrive around lunchtime, afternoon orientation
tour, no entrance, plus a special: Meet a former member of the Opera House
of Vienna, he will give quite a bit background information and let you know
about these interesting gossip stories from behind the scenes. Enjoy this
meeting in a comfortable Viennese coffee house atmosphere with cake and
coffee (subject to confirmation).
We Are in Talks with Bosendorfer Now About a Visit in Place of the Opera Member Chat, Updates Coming
o/n Vienna

June 16, 11 Thu
Full-day “Musical Vienna”, a city tour connected with composers, with music,
of which there are many in Vienna.
Dinner at local restaurant, maybe in Grinzing, where you dine with local
wine and music in a wine village nearby Vienna
o/n Vienna

June 17, 11 Fri
trf to Vienna Airport, head home.

Please continue to watch the forums and read our newsletters for further updates. We are working hard to get all the details nailed down.

If you think you are interested in joining us on this wonderful musical experience, please let us know.

ADDITIONAL INFO:

~ Breakfast will be included
~ Hotels will have AC
~ Tour bus will be modern with AC and bathroom
~ Everyone will receive a Piano World Forums Lapel Pin and a Hat
~ Hoping some of the piano makers will have some sort of goodies to give out :-)
~ Other Goodies to be announced later
~ We are working on fitting in one more piano maker tour/visit (to bring us back up to 4)
~ No entrance means, it is a panoramic tour where we don't go into museums,
only take photo stops, and therefore no entrance costs are included.

Hello again Frank,

The itinerary sounds wonderful. Thank you for all the work you are doing to put this together. I'm putting the dates on my calendar. Please put my name on the list.

Sincerely,
Terry L. Peterson
(Bachsky)

Frank,

I just noticed the "day 0". I think that means June 4. Usually Europe is an overnight flight from the US. So the dates should read June 4-17 for people making travel plans. When leaving Europe for the US you can do that all on the same day because of the travel direction west and the changing time zones.

Terry

Please count me in! As I mentioned before it works well with my conference in Prague, looks like I'll be spending the month of June in Europe! Trip of a lifetime!

Sounds wonderful Frank! Can't wait!

sounds like an incredible itinerary.

for those interested in visiting grotrian, braunschweig is not terribly far from hamburg, iirr.

i've been to both steingraeber and the deustche museum's musical instrument collection. both are not-to-be-missed!

i'd love to be there for any one of those locations, but especially vienna, which i missed out on visiting because i was kidnapped to mittenwald (also definitely worth visiting!)

Looks good. Only critique is . ..
Vienna w/o Boesendorfer??

Hope I can go.

I'd be happy to visit Bosendorfer, if they would like to have us and we can find a way to fit it into the schedule.

If not, depending on how well the 2011 tour goes, we will be happy to go again in 2012 and visit some of the other fine piano makers in the area that we missed this time.

At some point I'd also like to get up to Estonia, and over to Northern Italy (Fazioli) (maybe next tour).

I'd be happy to visit Bosendorfer, if they would like to have us and we can find a way to fit it into the schedule.

Yes, I realize everything can't be done in one shot. I wouldn't bring up going to another town. It just seemed that as long as we were there . . .

I had a friend who had a Vienna tour and, in fact, Bosendorfer was one of the sites they visited.

But in the posted itinerary I only count three: Steinway, Bluthner and Steingraeber.

Yes, we had to take one out because of time constraints.

We are looking at working another visit in somewhere, but we already have a lot on our plates.

Here is a Map of European Piano Builders, courtesy of our own BosieEric...



CLICK for Larger Image
As you can see, we will be traveling right in the heart of piano building country.

This sounds like a wonderful tour! I would be very interested in going!

More details and pricing estimates should be available in the next couple of days.

Please add your name to this thread if you think you might be interested in joining us on this exciting musical adventure.

Hello Frank,

Terry L. Peterson is definitely interested.

My experience tells me that very soon you will need to require a $ deposit. This is essential. A few years ago Brian G. (dealer in Florida) tried to do a similar trip but couldn't get enough paying participants to make it work. We need to put our money where our mouth is so you will know if you have the numbers to make this work. I have led tours abroad and there usually is a minimum number that is needed, expecially to make the details and expense of ground transportation viable. I'm looking forward to the details.

Boesendorfer gave me a tote bag, pen, polo shirt, and literature if that makes any difference...

Hi Terry,

Yes, you are correct, we will need to get a minimum number of people and will need to get deposits. We've been working with a travel agency for a while now. They couldn't give us prices until we firmed up the itinerary.
I think we're about there, although there may still have to be some shifting with the days/times to work around holidays etc.

I'm hoping to post approximate pricing in the next few days.
After that I'll be sending out a newsletter and featuring the tour on the forums.

I'm hoping enough people realize what a wonderful opportunity this really is, and how much fun it will be.

Best,

Frank B.
Piano World

Yes! This works out so nicely for me. Is there some flexibility for those of us already in europe? I would like to attend the whole trip, but if for some reason I can only join a few days later, would it be possible? Also, I won't need plane reservations. My intention would be to take the train up to germany and meet you somewhere there. The last few days in vienna I could just stay at home rather than at the hotel, and just meet you in the mornings. If the price of those nights could be deducted, that would be neat.

If there is no tour possibility for Bosendorfer, could always just pop into the showroom in the first district for a quick look. It's within walking distance of all sights in the 1st district, including the mozart house next to stephan's platz. Specifically the house where he lived for a few years:

Copied from the website:
Domgasse 5 is the only one of Mozart’s apartments in Vienna that still exists today. The composer lived in Mozarthaus Vienna from 1784 to 1787 in grand style, with four large rooms, two small ones and a kitchen. The life and works of this musical genius are presented in and around this apartment on four exhibition levels. In addition to the historical Mozart apartment visitors can find out about the times in which Mozart lived and his most important works. The exhibition focuses on his years in Vienna, which marked a high point in his creativity. The tour starts on the 3rd floor of the building with details of Mozart’s time in Vienna: where he lived and performed, who his friends and supporters were, his relationship to the Freemasons, his passion for games and much more. The presentation on the 2nd floor deals with Mozart’s operatic works, and the apartment on the 1st floor focuses on the two and a half years that Mozart and his family lived there.

PLEASE SEE THIS NEW THREAD with updated itinerary, pricing, and details.