February 25th to March 3rd, 2000 was our Fifth Annual Tuners’ Brigade. This year there were 19 participants, piano tuners from all over North America and Europe. Rescuing termite-infested ancient pianos, providing replacement parts, repairing our donated pianos and aiding in distribution. Three volunteer piano movers were part of the Brigade and they met the container ship with the donated pianos and schlepped them from the ship to the workshop and then to various schools around Cuba.
To date we have delivered 110 used pianos from donors in the United States. Another 50 pianos will be arriving in Cuba just before the Tuners’ Brigade in February of 2001.
The Brigade split up and made side trips to Santa Clara, Holguin, and Las Tunas to work in music schools.
Armando, Maurel and Yuli with the Helms-Treuhaft bass string machine
photograph © Maximiliana Henze
In the last year, Send A Piana To Havana’s relationship with Cuban officials has become clearer. The project has been adopted by CNEART, the Cuban national art education system. They work with us on the distribution and shipping logistics. They have all of the contacts with the music schools and provide a big picture of the music school system and make sure that pianos get donated all over Cuba and not only to students in Havana.
Our Cuban counterparts Armando Gomez Pino and Yuli Diaz Diaz have been involved with Send A Piana To Havana since its inception. They have made the project their life. While the Tuners’ Brigade lasts only an action-packed ten days, Armando and Yuli run the workshop year round. The husband and wife team continues to repair the pianos and maintain the equipment. They have developed valuable relationships with the Escuela Nacional de Arte (the site of the Send A Piana To Havana workshop) the music education system, the Cuban organizations that deal with foreign affairs and other government agencies. They are permanent residents of Havana and they represent the project full time. They run the bass string winding machine and next year will start an accredited piano technology school, beginning with 6 young students from around the island.
In the summer of 1998, Ben Treuhaft brought Armando Gomez Pino to the United States to attend the Piano Technicians Guild convention in Rhode Island. The annual convention was a good opportunity for Armando to learn new skills and to promote Send A Piana To Havana. The convention draws people from all over North America and some participants from all over the world. It features classes in piano tuning and restoration. In June 2000, Ben invited Armando, his wife Yuli Diaz Diaz and Raquel Montejo, director of the Museum of Music in Havana, to attend the PTG convention in Arlington, Virginia--but they were denied entry by the State Department officials. The expanded participation of Send A Piana To Havana representatives at the PTG convention would have been a unique experience for the Cuban tuners. It would have been an excellent opportunity for our Cuban counterparts to reunite with the Brigade participants, many of whom attend the PTG convention. Instead both the Americans and the Cubans were disappointed.
Part of our agenda is to establish a permanent Send A Piana To Havana presence in Cuba. Not only will we be able to defy the U.S. government year-round, but also we will be able to continue work on the repair and distribution of the pianos beyond the 10 days of the brigade, and run the school of piano technology. We have taken steps in this direction. Doshie Powers, a piano tuner from Massachusetts, stayed in Havana for 3 months, from February to May 2000. She worked with Armando and Yuli every day and set up the workshop/school. She built workstations, provided and set up power tools, catalogued the tons of miscellaneous piano-related donations, finished nearly completed repair jobs, and did most of the practical hard work to prepare the scene for a functioning school.
Paul Larudee, a veteran of the piano wars offered workshops during the February 2000 brigade. His three classes tailored piano technology demonstrated his experiences with the realities of piano work in Cuba. Restringing without tools or materials-splicing or replacement of broken plain or wound strings and replacement of broken tuning pins. Repairing or replacing hammer shanks without tools or materials. Principles and methods of tuning with emphasis on practical interval tests.
The school of piano tuning and rebuilding has been approved by the Cuban government. Students will be able to take courses on a full-time basis at our workshop at the ENA, now an accredited school. We hope to begin offering courses in the very near future, perhaps coinciding with the Annual Tuners’ Brigade of February 2001.
View of the Instituto Superior del Arte (ISA)
photograph © Maximiliana Henze
In 1998 internationally known piano rebuilding expert Priscilla Rappaport brought a new $15,000 half-ton German bass-string-winding machine and enough wire to start up a new joint venture with the Cuban government: the Helms-Treuhaft Piano Bass-String Factory. We were hoping to ride on the instantly recognized name of the North Carolina senator. Replacement bass-strings are generally custom-made and expensive, so if you broke a bass-string on a piano in Cuba, you had to just avoid playing that note. This machine is really a solution to that problem. It will provide top-quality wound strings to replace the broken ones and restore many pianos. In October of 1998, Priscilla Rappaport gave classes to Armando Gomez Pino and two other students in the art of winding perfect new bass-strings. Soon all Cuban piano technicians will be able to order new bass-strings from our factory.
Seventy percent of pianos in Cuba are infested by the comegen termite. Rosa Lowenger, a museum conservation expert from Los Angeles, came with the brigade in 1998 and met with Cuban restoration experts. She has developed safe and efficient method of killing this pest. The Cuban Institute of Music is working on perfecting these methods for deployment.
The congregation of Martin Luther King church in Havana listens to their newly donated
piano
photograph © Maximiliana Henze
