Stuart & Sons
Australian piano manufacturer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stuart & Sons is an Australian manufacturer of handcrafted grand pianos. The company is based in Tumut in New South Wales.
 | |
| Company type | Private company |
|---|---|
| Industry | Musical instruments |
| Founded | 1990 |
| Founder | Wayne Stuart |
| Headquarters | , Australia |
Area served | Worldwide |
| Products | Grand pianos |
| Website | stuartandsons |
History
Wayne Stuart founded the company in 1990 as Stuart & Sons Terra Australia Pty Limited. The company later evolved and formed a partnership with Albert Music.
The company used to be based in Newcastle but in 2015, it relocated to Tumut at the base of the Snowy Mountains.[1]
Pianos
Stuart & Sons uses Australian timbers for construction.[2]
The Dutch-Australian pianist and teacher Gerard Willems used a Stuart & Sons piano when recording the complete piano sonata cycle of Ludwig van Beethoven during 1999 and 2000.[3]
Stuart & Sons created a grand piano with 14 more keys than are found on a standard piano, for a total of 102 keys (C0 to F8) or eight and one half octaves.[4][5] A model with 20 extra keys (108 keys in total, 9 octaves, C0 to B8, approximately 16.4 Hz to 7902.1 Hz) was built in 2018.[6][7]
Piano locations
Stuart pianos are used at many locations throughout Australia, including:
- Sydney Conservatorium of Music
- Government House, Sydney
- Admiralty House, Sydney
- Powerhouse Museum Sydney
- Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music
- Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust
- Clancy Auditorium Central Queensland University
- Central Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Mackay, Queensland
- Beleura House and Gardens, Mornington, Victoria
- Hale School, Perth
See also
Other Australian piano manufacturers
Formerly:
- Beale Piano, now manufactured in China.
- Wertheim Piano
Other notable pianos of comparable size
- Imperial Bösendorfer (C0 to C8, 97 keys)
- opus 102 (102 keys) by Stephen Paulello[7][8]