Piano Performance Museum

Listen to Our Episode of Kaatscast!

We are honored to be featured on the latest episode of Kaatscast, the Catskills Podcast. Listen to our episode below!

The Collection

The collection includes early and modern keyboard instruments, including 200-year-old historic European pianos as well as American pianos built in the early 19th and 20th centuries. The collection shows the development of the instrument from pre-pianos like the clavichord and harpsichord, to the fortepiano, up to the modern piano. The Museum also houses a unique collection of miniature pianos and includes tuning tools and repair kits; tuning forks, hammers—everything that would allow a technician to bring a piano back to maximum performance standards. The goal of the Piano Performance Museum is to provide visual, audio and educational programs documenting the musical history and technical development of the piano, an essential instrument in performance, accompaniment and composition. After all, no musical education is complete without understanding the piano’s important role in musical development.

Steven E. Greenstein

Steven E. Greenstein was the collector and curator of the vintage piano collection owned by Catskill Mountain Foundation and on public display at the Doctorow Center for the Arts. For many years, Steven collected, repaired and restored vintage pianos at his home in the Hudson Valley, N.Y. He was President of the New York Piano Technicians Guild. As curator of the CMF Piano Performance Museum, Steven worked with other technicians expert in the restoration of historical pianos to bring back the pianos in the collection for use in concerts and demonstrations by guest artists, students and the general public. The collection lives on in his name with the gratitude and respect of the Catskill Mountain Foundation for his visionary collecting, expertise in piano restoration and maintenance and dedication to the goals of the museum which he established.