Yamaha and Musical Instrument Museum Strengthen Relationship

(l to r:) John Shalhoup, Chief Marketing Director, Yamaha; Dr. Bill R. DeWalt, President and Director, MIM; Bob Heller, Director of National Sales, Yamaha Keyboard Division; Jim Levesque, Disklavier Marketing Manager, Yamaha; Christopher Bell, VP of External Relations, MIM

PHOENIX — Yamaha Corporation of America and the Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) in Phoenix have announced that they are expanding their relationship with Yamaha's two year renewable loan of a Disklavier reproducing piano to the museum's global collection. Other Yamaha instruments in MIM's collection include a silent guitar, an alto horn, a trumpet, a valve trombone, an alto saxophone, a clarinet and a Recording Custom drum set, used for performances in the museum's Music Theater.

Billed as "the most extraordinary museum you'll ever hear," MIM is a 200,000-square-foot building with two floors of spacious, light-filled galleries and a collection of nearly 15,000 instruments and associated objects, including Carlos Santana's custom Yamaha guitar with inlaid Buddhist motifs.

"Yamaha truly shares our commitment to bringing exciting and unparalleled musical experiences to the world, and I'm delighted that they have made this generous contribution of instruments to our fine collection," said Dr. Bill R. DeWalt, president and director of the museum. "We are dedicated to providing high-quality events and presentations, while Yamaha represents excellence in craftsmanship and technology, so this partnership is a natural one that will have long-term benefits for all our visitors."

According to DeWalt, the addition of the Yamaha Disklavier—a technologically advanced reproducing grand piano that can magically playback note-for-note performances stored on the instrument or streamed over the Internet—provides a fabulous new way in which the museum can showcase the superb acoustics of the its 300-seat Music Theater around the clock.

When not being used for actual live performances in the theater, the Disklavier will remain on stage to automatically perform the myriad songs from its vast software library.

In addition, MIM plans to explore the full potential of Yamaha's groundbreaking Disklavier RemoteLive technology. Here, a pianist can perform live on the Disklavier in the theater and have his or her exact keystrokes and pedal movements transmitted live and in real time to other networked Disklavier pianos anywhere in the world.

The performance plays back live at the receiving end—a college classroom, another performance venue, even a living room—with the Disklavier's keys and pedals moving up and down to faithfully recreate the pianist's music. What is more, the entire performance (pianist and ensemble) appears on a big screen television, and in perfect sync with the piano. With musicians conceivably thousands of miles away from their audiences, this remarkable technology redefines the nature of piano performance and education, and opens up many opportunities for enhancing programming at the museum.

"The Musical Instrument Museum is doing a wonderful job presenting a broad range of compelling and innovative musical presentations, so it's natural for Yamaha to share its mission and to be a part of this magnificent collection," said Rick Young, Senior Vice President, Yamaha Corporation of America. "This is the kind of interactive museum experience that brings smiles to people's faces and reinforces the grandeur of music across all cultures."

For more information about the Musical Instrument Museum, visit www.themim.org. For information about Yamaha, call (714) 522-9011, email infostation@yamaha.com or visit http://4wrd.it/YAMAHAUSA.