Catawba has an All-Steinway School campaign underway to become one of only a handful of music departments worldwide to earn such an acclaimed distinction.
“Catawba College is embarking upon a campaign to become an All-Steinway School, joining 200 major colleges and universities from across the United States and abroad,” said Dr. Phillip Burgess, Dean of Catawba’s Shuford School of Performing Arts. “After a year of fund-raising activities and major donor support, Catawba’s first of three planned Spirio models has already transformed the Performing Arts at Catawba College. Students have access literally at their fingertips to both live and pre-recorded performances of legendary artists from all genres from all over the world.”
Spirio was introduced by Steinway & Sons in 2015, and Spirio | r, which was introduced in 2019, uses an iPad app for live-performance capture and playback. This feature is valuable for students and faculty to compose, rehearse, perform, record, edit, and share their music worldwide. The technology also gives users access to a library of thousands of pre-recorded piano works by some of the greatest living and legendary pianists.
The Spirio will benefit not only piano students and faculty but any instrumentalist who performs with piano accompaniment. An accompanist can record their part in advance, and the instrumentalist can play it back whenever they want to rehearse or perform, without the accompanist needing to be there in person.
Using the Spirio app, students will be able to record a performance and share the recording for several purposes, including entering competitions or auditions. The recording can be played back on a computer or through another Spirio.
The Spirio uses proprietary software to measure hammer velocity and proportional pedaling for both the damper pedal and soft pedal, which means any playing style or performance can be replicated on the instrument. The app has over 4,500 pre-recorded classical, jazz, and pop works by many of the world’s finest pianists, such as Lang Lang, and legendary performers like George Gershwin, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, and Glenn Gould.
The technology also allows performances on a Spirio to be cast to other Spirios in real-time, which means students and faculty will be able to sit in the Omwake-Dearborn Chapel to hear some of the finest pianists of our time play live from anywhere in the world. The Spirio can also be played as a concert grand without the technology.
This amazing technology will be displayed this Thursday, February 6th, for Catawba’s first live Spirio cast. Pianist Lang Lang will perform live in Hamburg, and audience members in the Omwake-Dearborn Chapel can see and hear him perform live. The performance begins at 1 pm in the Chapel at Catawba and 8 pm in Hamburg.
For more information about Catawba’s Shuford School of Performing Arts, visit https://catawba.edu/performingarts/.
