Saluting Symphony Center’s team of tuning technicians on Piano Day

In today’s high-tech, digital world, a piano tuner might seem as outdated a profession as a blacksmith or telephone operator.

But while the number of piano tuners has certainly declined in recent decades, the ones still at work are as busy as can be, especially the four elite technicians who take care of the pianos at Symphony Center: Christa Andrepont, Richard Beebe, Wes Owen and Josh Younger.

“I figured: I’m going into a crusty, dusty old career. It’ll be fine,” Younger recalled thinking when he decided to become a piano tuner. “But little did I know there would be such demand. I can tell my apprentice that she has great career prospects, and that’s really nice to be able to say.”

On March 29, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will observe Piano Day — an international event celebrated on the 88th day of the year, which symbolizes the 88 keys on a piano — with various activities, including a salute to its hard-working piano tuners.

The annual event pays tribute to the piano, an instrument whose rich history dates to the 18th century and whose influence stretches around the globe, as well as the composers, players, builders, fans and, yes, technicians who are associated with it.

Taking care of a piano is no easy task, considering that a 9-foot Steinway concert grand piano — the standard-setting instrument played by nearly all of the world’s top keyboardists — has more than 12,000 parts, including 236 strings that exert some 20 tons of tension.

“It’s really a challenge to take a piano,” said Richard Beebe (at left), “and make it play smoothly and perfectly at a concert level and to have it sound like a great concert instrument.”

The CSO’s four tuners are each responsible for all of the piano tuning and maintenance needs at Symphony Center one week each month during its fall-to-spring season. That means taking care of 21 pianos (13 grands and eight uprights), including ones in dressing rooms and smaller performance spaces. “It’s like shepherds alternating on a flock of pianos,” Younger said.

But their main focus is the onstage concert grand that often serves as an orchestral instrument, and more important, the two pianos that are used by visiting pianists for piano concertos, solo recitals and chamber concerts. On the mornings when a pianist arrives for his or her first rehearsal with the CSO, usually on Wednesdays, the piano tuner on duty that week arrives as early as 5 a.m. to get the orchestra’s two concert pianos tuned and ready for that artist to test onstage. He or she then chooses which one to play. (Returning pianists often know in advance which one they prefer.)

The CSO owns two nine-foot Steinway grand pianos that it provides to soloists. One was made in Steinway’s Astoria factory in New York City and the other in Hamburg, Germany, and each has its own distinctive timbre and feel. The New York piano has a larger sound, and pianists often choose it for more expansive concertos. But for concertos by Mozart or Beethoven or for solo recitals, many prefer the piano built in Hamburg.

The German-built instrument is about 20 years old and was chosen by Daniel Barenboim, who served as the orchestra’s music director during 1991-2006. In addition to being a major conductor, he is an internationally recognized pianist. “It is still a really special, beautiful piano,” said Andrepont. “They’ve had hammers replaced a few times, and it sounds just as beautiful.”

Often, visiting pianists have special requests. Perhaps a half-octave at the top is not singing out or the volume isn’t quite in balance. The technicians then jump in to make fixes to the action (the mechanism that causes the hammers to strike the strings), voicing or some other aspect of the piano. “We have to be vigilant about keeping up with those things and making subtle adjustments on the fly,” Owen said. In addition, the technicians re-tune the piano before every rehearsal and performance.

“I’m right in my element down at the symphony, because the pianists I work with are so discriminating,“ Younger said. ”Most of them are high-level. They know what they want. They demand it. They expect levels of perfection that you can only get if you are a very experienced technician. The only time I get better is when I am held to my best.”

While the four tuners will use an app on their phone like Verituner to make sure the starting note — the A above middle C on the piano — is correctly calibrated to the modern standard of 440 hertz or cycles per second, they then set the remaining notes on a piano by ear. “In my world, that is mandatory,” Owen said. “Being able to tune by ear is just something we have to be able to do.”

The CSO had a group of long-serving piano technicians who all retired in and around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they carefully recommended names of possible replacements, and that’s how the four current technicians were chosen. “I was floored, because it came out nowhere,” Beebe said of his selection.

These four technicians are among the best in this region, each having an extensive resume and other important posts. Andrepont, for example, also works for the Houston Symphony and the Aspen (Colo.) Music Festival, and Owen serves as Northwestern University’s supervisor of keyboard maintenance. 

For each, working at the CSO is a dream job and a big honor. “When I go to Orchestra Hall,” Owen said, “I try not to, but I do think about the fact that Horowitz and Rubinstein and Rachmaninov and Ravel — all those people were on that stage. Somebody had to prepare the piano for those guys and do basically the same things that I do now.”