Steinway Pianos and Rebuilding w/ Alex Kostakis

Steinway Pianos and Rebuilding w/ Alex Kostakis

Make sure to get in on our latest masterclass covering Action Geometry with Dean Reyburn. Join us Thursday April 18 at 3pm Pacific or 6pm Eastern Time. Visit https://bit.ly/pianoaction to register!

On today’s episode, we have Alex Kostakis join us whose family has been involved in Steinway for many years, and later they started their own rebuilding practice. Alex shares his journey of working on Steinway pianos, the details of the pianos, and the relationship with customers. 

Alex details what goes into his best restored Steinways - a virgin piano that has not been tampered with by anyone, matches all the specifications when reproducing a pin block, adjusts for the wedges on the keyframe to take away from the height of the strings, and create a slope from the top of the rim to the bottom of the rim. 

Alex talks about what it means to read the piano in front of you and how to look at the minor things. All of these go miles in setting you apart and building yourself as a successful piano technician. Tune in to listen from him about all things Steinway and rebuilding. 

Here’s a little bit about our guest Alex Kostakis:


𝐉𝐎𝐈𝐍 𝐔𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐓 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐍𝐓❗❗

Browse more masterclasses and lectures from Piano Tuning Pros here: https://www.pianotechniciansmasterclass.com/

Piano Tech Radio Hour is brought to you by Piano Technicians Master. We provide cutting-edge piano technology instruction from piano industry masters without leaving your home, featuring monthly subscriptions, conventions, single live streaming, and recorded masterclasses. Learn advanced skills:
  • How to tune pianos.
  • How to repair pianos.
  • How to rebuild pianos.
  • How to tune concert pianos for the finest performers in the world.

Make sure to get in on our latest masterclass covering Action Geometry with Dean Reyburn. Join us Thursday April 18 at 3pm Pacific or 6pm Eastern Time. Visit https://bit.ly/pianoaction to register!

Creators and Guests

David Andersen
Host
David Andersen
David Andersen, owner of David Andersen pianos in Los Angeles has been a professional musician, recording artist, and piano technician/consultant for nearly four decades. He has overseen the restoration and maintenance of hundreds of Steinway and Mason & Hamlin pianos during that time. Beginning in 1975 he apprenticed for two and a half years under Jack Cofer in Atlanta, Georgia; during the 1980s he studied at Steinway facilities both in New York and London.
Eathan Janney
Host
Eathan Janney
Eathan has 20 years of experience as a piano technician. He studied with Dave Miller, the staff piano technician for the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, New Jersey. Dave Carpenter, the inventor of the Verituner electronic tuning device, provided mentorship for Eathan in Chicago. Eathan also worked with Ken Eschete and Bill Schwarts, the staff piano technicians at Northwestern University in Chicago. In 2009, he founded Floating Piano Factory of New York, a company that allows piano technicians to move from Apprentice to Craftsman level while offering value pricing to clients as technicians progress toward mastery. In 2017 he founded Piano Technicians Masterclasses, an online project designed to offer cutting-edge instruction from piano industry masters to anyone on the globe with an internet connection.
2020 Piano Technicians Masterclasses