Jeff Meyer Helps Create Piano From Historic Trees
It started in the year 2000, when Jeff Meyer had an idea that he wanted to build a piano by using wood fallen from historic trees. This dream has allied music, history and environmentalism and is now a reality.
Jeff Meyer, from Jacksonville, Florida, founded the American Forests Historic Tree Project, which works to educate citizens of the importance of trees. The project also sells the offspring of trees that have historical backgrounds.
Meyer has saved offspring of trees connected to Johnny Appleseed, George Washington, Ray Charles and other historical figures. He has used the wood to make items such as guitars and gavels. Meyer has also planted trees at Capitol Hill in the United States, at the Russian White House, and other notable locations around the wold.
So there is no doubt that Meyer is a tree expert, but he didn't know much about pianos, but he really wanted to have a grand piano built from some of his historic trees, so he contacted Steinway & Sons, the universally renowned piano makers to create the masterpiece.
The unique 9-foot concert grand piano was built by Steinway using more than 20 types of wood from trees Meyer chose from around Walden Pond, the Massachusetts retreat of renowned conservationist and author Henry David Thoreau that served as inspiration for most of his works. Jeff Meyer doesn't use live wood from any tree, instead he uses what he calls "hangers", which are branches and pieces of wood that fall to the ground or get stuck up in the branches of the trees.
All of the wood was collected by Meyer himself and brought back to Jacksonville, Florida, where he prepared it for the trip to the Steinway company headquarters in New York for the piano to be built by craftsman Silas Kopf.
Kopf crafted the piano according to strict Steinway & Son specifications and used mostly American black walnut blended with all sorts of wood from ash to chestnut. The outside of the piano is decorated with handcrafted artwork that portrays the nature and wildlife that inspired Thoreau during his lifetime.
Across the upper rim of the piano is etched a quote from Thoreau: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
So far, the piano has been displayed in Steinway Hall and was used at an October show at New York's Lincoln Center where performers included Billy Joel, Barbara Nissman, and Don Henley, who is best known as the former lead singer of The Eagles, but is also founder of the Walden Woods Project.
The piano was played by Elton John on March 23, 2007, and by Bruce Hornsby on April 24th of the same year. However, Jeff Meyer still hasn't seen the piano in person. He told the Florida Times-Union newspaper: "I've never seen it completely finished," he said. "I've never sat down and played middle C." He did plan on attending the October 2007 event at the Lincoln Center and have the opportunity to see the piano in action at the event.
After the concert, the piano will be auctioned by Christie's as a fundraiser for the Walden Woods Project and American Forests. The opening bid for the piano is at $500,000 but is expected to go much higher, over $1 million.
But it's the piano that is expected to take center stage. The opening bid is $500,000 and some appraisers believe it could quickly top $1 million.