Orchard Music Program Given 'Grand' Donation

With a little help during the delivery, Orchard’s music department celebrated a new arrival last week - a baby grand piano.

The piano has a rich history in Orchard, originally belonging to Charles Alexander. Alexander gave the piano to the United Methodist Church where it was used in the sanctuary for several years. From there, it went to the school for a short time before arriving at the Masonic Lodge.

Orchard’s band and choir director, Emily Heithoff, knew there was a baby grand piano in the Masonic Lodge when it was being sold. Doug Wright, owner of Double D’s Saloon in Orchard, purchased the piano.

“The gentleman who bought the building said to donate [the piano] to the school, that he wasn’t going to use it, so just give it to the school,” Heithoff said.

On Thursday, the piano was moved intothe classroom with the help of Jeff Shabram and some of the football players. “We literally just had to lift it up, stick it on the trailer, and drive it a block to school, and then we tipped it on its side to get it in the building,” she said.

Heithoff is excited to have a baby grand piano. “There are not a lot of class D schools that have a baby grand piano sitting in their classroom, so it’s really awesome that we can brag that, ‘Oh, well we have one,’” she said.

She plans to use the piano to demonstrate to the students about how vibrations make sound happen.

“It’s really cool to have a baby grand because the lid of the piano opens up, and so the kids can look inside the piano, and we can talk about the mechanics of how it actually works and how the hammer comes up and touches the string and the string vibrates,” Heithoff said.

In addition, she said she will use the piano for choir practice and to accompany band soloists in preparation for competition.

“We will not use it for concerts because of what it takes to move it out of the classroom, but if/when we host NVC choir, then we will move it into the gym for a big event like that,” Heithoff said. “It’ll be my daily piano. I’ll use it for choir, band, anything I can think of. I’m going to play it as much as I can.”

The students are also very excited to have the baby grand piano in the classroom. “When they walked in, their eyes lit up. They were really excited to see it, and I’ve already shown a couple classes how it works. I set up the lid and showed them the inside,” she said. “They just think it’s the coolest thing because they haven’t seen it before, and they don’t really have the opportunity, even really in churches anymore…to see a baby grand like that.”

After looking up the piano’s serial number, Heithoff discovered that it was originally manufactured by the Milton Piano Company in New York around 1908 to 1910. “It’s in really good shape for being 100 years old plus,” she said.
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Heithoff is extremely grateful for the donation. “It means a lot to me because I love Orchard and I love where I work, and just the community, that they would say, ‘Oh, absolutely take this baby grand.’ That they would do that for us is just amazing. I love the support that our music department gets.”