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'BRIGHT' PIANO
Artist, Bosendorfer are creating an instrument that may outshine all others, thanks to cut-glass inlays
Journal Photo by Bruce Chapman
Jon Kuhn, in his studio on Liberty Street, is venturing into new artistic territory.
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Published: September 2, 2008
Jon Kuhn played the flute as a child but dropped it to focus on his passion for turning glass into artwork.
"By the time I got into glass, I gave everything else up," Kuhn said recently at his downtown studio on Liberty Street.
Now Kuhn is returning to music, but bringing his love of glass with him.
He has commissioned the Bosendorfer piano company to create a high-end piano that will feature Kuhn's glasswork inlaid in the piano and bench, creating an effect that Kuhn says will make the piano sparkle like a diamond.
The piano will carry Kuhn's name alongside the Bosendorfer name. The first piano is expected to arrive sometime this fall, and Kuhn has designs for other pianos inlaid with his glassworks.
The piano could be the start of a new venture for Kuhn.
"The idea of doing these extraordinarily rare instruments, that's tremendously exciting," Kuhn said.
Bosendorfer's Artisan model piano, which features patterns of inlaid wood, is probably the company's most expensive model, said Eric Johnson, the Eastern regional sales manager for Bosendorfer. That model sells for $280,000.
The Kuhn-Bosendorfer model will sell for about $1.2 million. The price represents both the rarity of the instrument and the craftsmanship it takes to produce it, Kuhn said.
Johnson said that the piano company considers the Kuhn-Bosendorfer model a commissioned work for Kuhn, with sales going through Kuhn, not through Bosendorfer's dealers.
"This is a really, really cool thing," Johnson said. "We hope there will be many more."
It's not the first time the piano company has been commissioned for a work. It has a history of creating pianos as envisioned by architects, artists and designers.
Whether the company will get involved in selling the Kuhn-designed pianos depends upon the response of customers and dealers, he said.
"If the reception is substantial, then I would think we'd like to talk to him about distribution through our dealer network" he said. Otherwise, the company will continue to let Kuhn handle the sales.
"It's too early for us to tell right now which of these two paths we're going to go," Johnson said. "Jon has great ideas and we're happy to work with him. But it depends upon how sales of the first ones go."
Kuhn's studio employs 28 people who grind, layer and fuse the intricate glass pieces that create his artworks. Many of them are large glassworks on pedestals that allow the works to be rotated, emitting shimmering patterns of light as they spin.
"What we did differently for this project -- we had to make lots of very, very tiny pieces," Kuhn said.
"Most of my work is much bigger, larger, measuring anywhere from 6 inches to 40 to 50 inches and can have as many as a million components."
Creating the glasswork for the geometric designs on the piano meant thinking on much smaller terms, no larger than an inch and a half in scale.
"It was about developing new techniques, new technologies wherein we could handle things on a small scale," Kuhn said. "It's really much more like a jeweler's art."
There are more than 200 individual pieces of glasswork that will be inlaid in the pianos. Each of them contains 100 to 500 different pieces of lead crystal glass.
The glass is sent to Vienna, Austria, where the Bosendorfer company makes the pianos.
"It's going to be like a diamond-encrusted piano," Kuhn said. "It's going to be a really fabulous instrument."
The first completed piano will stay here, at Kuhn's studio, Kuhn said.
Kuhn approached the piano company with the idea about three years ago. It took about a year and a half to build the first model.
He hopes that the next piano can be made in about half the time.
Kuhn said he has talked to clients who are interested in the pianos.
"How many of them will I make? I guess that depends upon how long I live," Kuhn said.
■ Paul Garber can be reached at 727-7327 or at pgarber@wsjournal.com.
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