Convinced that better pianos could be made using modern materials alongside select woods, Wayne started his own factory in Newcastle, New South Wales in 1990. His burgeoning company, now Piano Australia Pty Ltd., handcrafts two sizes of grand pianos. Each embraces a number of novel techniques to improve the clarity and richness of the piano. Among Wayne's innovations are a fourth "dolce" pedal for soft-sustain, nine additional keys (five treble, four bass), and his unique "agraffe" mounting assembly to purify the tonal quality of the string sound.

Based on more than a century of development in the art of piano construction, the Stuart piano redefines and expands the limits of the traditional instrument. The full eight octaves of his Concert Grand Piano encourages composers and performers alike to test the expanded limits of an instrument built in and for the 21st century. It takes a year from start to finish, under the personal guidance of Wayne Stuart, to create a Stuart & Sons Grand Piano. The result is an instrument that plays, sounds, and records like no other piano in the world.

You are invited to call for an appointment to find out for yourself what this piano can do for your playing and the repertoire you may be ready to try on it. We can make a CD of your playing if you like, for review at home.

Jerry Bruck, CEO – "Chief Engineer/Owner"

To make an appointment, call (212) 242-3737 between 10AM and 6PM EST. Weeknight and weekend appointments can also be scheduled.

Wayne Stuart offers an addendum to this brief description:

Stuart & Sons handcraft four models: the Studio Grand (2 x 2.2m, 7ft) and the Concert Grand (2 x 2.9m, 9.5ft). Their principal differences are their keyboards of 97 and 102 keys respectively. Their other hallmark features are common to both sizes.

Stuart & Sons are the only makers ever to have built a range of instruments that accommodates the entire frequency spectrum available to the acoustic piano. With its 14 additional keys, the Concert Grand is able to realize the entire piano literature without any frequency limitations.

The fourth or dolce pedal reduces the vertical velocity of the action by reducing the striking distance and key depth of the hammer motion. This reduces the dynamic range without muddying the sound envelope, invaluable for accompanying and creating subtle, textural inflections over the full range of the action.

The shift pedal reduces the lateral dimension of the sound envelope by reducing the number of strings struck. This action significantly increases the sustain and produces a more ethereal tonal texture. When both the shift and dolce pedals are depressed together the player is able to modify the volume and texture of the sound to an extraordinary degree.

The unique bridge-coupling agraffe is at the core of the Stuart & Sons principal innovation. This device encourages the strings to remain vibrating in the vertical plane, the same direction in which they are struck by the hammers. This produces a clearer and truer sound, due to the absence of the cross-polarization behavior found in conventional pianos*.

For additional details, go to the Stuart & Sons website: www.stuartandsons.com.

*The Stuart & Sons piano embodies a modern sound concept designed for the vertical nature of sound, the basis of Western music compositional ethos since the mid-1860’s. (For more information on this, check out Dr. Erik Tamm's Web site to download his "Brian Eno, His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound").