In 1900 all of America was crazy for pianos, and no place did more to fuel the madness than Boston. Any resident with enough curiosity and stamina could examine the wares of 40 different makers without leaving the city limits. New York had Steinway, Baltimore had Knabe, but only Boston could claim three top names of the day: Mason & Hamlin, Chickering, and the Franz Liszt-approved Hallet & Davis.
By 1930 it was all over but the bankruptcy filings. The Depression shrank household budgets, while the gramophone and then the radio provided all varieties of music, no lessons or cast-iron frames needed. Large firms eagerly simplified the options for consumers by buying out smaller competitors, only to fail themselves soon afterwards. A few outlasted the Depression, but in greatly changed and diminished form. Today, just one of those 40 companies, Mason & Hamlin, with their factory in Haverhill, MA, exists as a going concern, and only after surviving several near-death experiences in the 1980s. It’s one of only two piano makers in all of North America to remain active today.
What remains in the Boston area today, aside from some modest percentage of the hundreds of thousands of pianos it sent out into the world, is a sort of faint but persistent afterglow of curiosity about the history of the piano, as it played out in Boston and New England but also everywhere else. This takes the form of a small but dedicated community of technicians, historians, performers and collectors. (There are parallel communities for closely related instruments that also have strong local histories, such as pump organs, pipe organs and harpsichords.) Far from being secret societies or snooty cliques of aficionados, these communities welcome the interest of the public. A few hardy souls have even opened home-grown museums that reflect, in most cases, the work of a lifetime.
“Home-grown,” in this case, may mean limited funding, but by no means a limit on expertise or collection size. The Piano Museum, founded 50 years ago in Hopkinton, MA, by Charles Jackson and his wife Cheryl, owns 145 instruments. Currently housed in a purpose-built barn of Jackson’s own design, the collection includes both home and concert instruments from the early 19th century through the first decades of the 20th. Since inventiveness is a theme of the collection, there are also many examples of instruments that reflect different approaches to shape, size, structure, action, use of materials or overall design.
Then there are the many types of delightful oddities: transposing pianos whose keyboards can slide left or right, a piano whose middle pedal adds a cheery metallic jingling to every note, a piano with an admirably forward-looking design for an ergonomically curving keyboard, a barrel piano. For those who wanted more piano than they had room for, various inventors offered solutions: an upright whose keyboard tilts up like a murphy bed, a grand whose keyboard stays in place while the rest of the piano is the murphy bed, and, of course, a full-murphy grand, so carefully balanced on its stand you can move it from horizontal to vertical with one hand. A few stray pump organs round out the collection. (Many companies shifted between pump organs and pianos or made both; the organs were especially popular in rural areas, since they were smaller, lighter, never needed tuning, and required much less technique.)
Jackson is — no surprise — an experienced piano restorer and technician, but he’s also an informative and highly entertaining guide. The museum welcomes visitors by appointment, although a high-quality full-length video, shot during a recent visit by BMint publisher Lee Eiseman, gives an excellent feeling for the place, from the individual instruments and their stories down to the resident Buff Orpington hens.
Some changes are afoot. After 50 years in Hopkinton, the Piano Museum’s non-profit entity, along with 45 of its instruments, is relocating to Adams, MA — the heart of the Berkshires and the birthplace of Susan B. Anthony. The plan is to have as many instruments as possible available to be seen, heard and played, while also coordinating events with various local groups and institutions. The person heading up this project is Oscar Jiang, quite possibly the only person in the world who is simultaneously a concert pianist, a piano technician and an employee of a piano maker — Mason & Hamlin, in fact, where his role includes both working with institutions and doing tuning, regulation and voicing when needed.
In 2012 Jiang happened to hear a recording of the Chopin second concerto with Dang Thai Son performing on an 1849 Erard, accompanied by Frans Brüggen and the Orchestra of 18th Century. “That sound has always stuck in my head,” he says, pinpointing it as the moment he became interested in historical pianos.
Jiang’s performing credentials are impeccable. Raised in Melbourne, Australia, he earned his undergraduate degree at Juilliard, where he studied with Matti Raekallio. For his master’s degree he switched to New England Conservatory, studying with Alexander Korsantia and with Dang, the first pianist of Asian heritage to win a top-tier prize with his gold-medal triumph at the 1980 Chopin Competition. There are a number of videos of Jiang on YouTube, including this appealing one from the younger sibling of the Chopin competition, the International Chopin Competition on Period Instruments, launched in 2018 by the same organizers:
In conversation, Jiang comes across as thoughtful, reflective, and perpetually curious. Having encountered the Dang/Brüggen recording in high school, he wanted to learn more about historical pianos, but couldn’t find anyone in Melbourne at the time who was especially knowledgeable. At Juilliard, Jiang found many fellow piano students who were more open-minded about period instruments than earlier generations had been, but few who shared his level of interest. “The first time I got to a place where I could really explore, dive into the whole thing — both performance and the technical side — was at NEC in 2022,” says Jiang. It helped as well that some mainstream players had begun to show interest. “Malcom Bilson did a lot to help make that happen.” The pioneer performer on historical pianos has become something of a mentor for Jiang, who typically visits Bilson several times a year.
Learning that Jackson was looking for someone to continue his project, Jiang approached him to discuss the possibilities. A former church building in Adams was available, and would accommodate at least a third of the collection. “The work now is figuring out the details,” says Jiang. “The transfer of the non-profit entity, a plan for proper heat and humidity control and similar issues.”
There’s also the question of instrument condition. Jiang acknowledges that “most will need some work,” meaning attention from a qualified restoration expert, though he adds that not all instruments need to be in perfect condition. “Some will be playable, including by museum visitors, while others can serve as examples of the variety and range of innovations and the alternate paths of development that existed as the piano was becoming standardized. The mission is basically to preserve and recognize the ingenuity, creativity and craftsmanship of the people who were laboring to design and make these instruments.” Jackson voices much the same views in the museum-tour video.
Over the longer term, the focus is on finding ways to make the museum self-sustaining. Jiang indicates that the plans for the immediate future are falling into place, but ultimately wants to see the museum gain the level of institutional security it needs to ensure a healthy future. “That’s a big project, more than I can do by myself. So as we build out the new museum location we’re looking to build relationships with sponsors, donors and advisors.”
Although the new location is further from Boston, it’s in good company, culturally speaking, with the Clark Art Institute, Mass MOCA, Tanglewood and other Western Mass destinations nearby. There are even other keyboard instrument collections nearby. The Frederick Collection of historical pianos in Ashburnham, on the way west via Route 2, offers recitals on restored pianos from the 18th and 19th centuries. And there are two museums for reed organs, one in downtown Palmer (The Pease Collection is not open on a regular schedule, though one can peer in the windows, and there are good video tours online) and the Estey Organ Museum in Brattleboro, VT in part of the namesake factory, historically the largest maker of reed organs in America.
And what of all the pianos that have not been so fortunate as to find a new home? There is a museum of sorts for them as well. The Louis A. Gentile Piano Service, on Federal Avenue in Quincy, offers piano tuning, maintenance and restoration, but also piano breaking, which is about what it sounds like (sledgehammers and dumpsters are involved). Budget-brand spinets and undistinguished uprights are the mainstays of this line of work, although worn-out or damaged grands are in the mix. What distinguishes Gentile’s operation is that he maintains a keen eye for the unusual. For true rarities, Gentile may try to find a new home, while historically meaningful elements of others may take their place in an extensive collection that lines walls of the company’s shop and office. You can see this collection in another recent video by Lee Eiseman, along with a (literally) blow-by-blow demonstration of the demolition process.
While the museum’s new Adams location will not be ready to receive visitors for at least 6 months — the opening is tentatively set for Spring of 2027, the Jacksons’s location in Hopkinton will still be accepting visitors, by appointment, for at least the next 4-6 weeks. There is also the opportunity to take home a souvenir: the 100 or so instruments that remain on view are looking for new homes. For those of us who would love to better understand the rich history of instrument-making, it’s a chance to acquire and take part in the preservation of rare, one-of-a-kind instruments worthy of saving, such as this Kramer upright with reversed black and white keys. As the video tour makes clear, there are many other noteworthy instruments worthy of preservation. Proceeds from these pianos will go towards funding the new museum and the preservation of its collection, so that future generations have the opportunity to learn back on the remarkable era of expertise, innovation and craftsmanship for which Boston led the way.
Good to see and hear two longtime Boston piano colleagues get this recognition
Comment by Martin Snow — September 28, 2026 at 4:09 pm