Glass Artist Jon Kuhn Announces Availability of the World's Most Expensive Piano

Kuhn Studio announced today pending availability of a $1.2 million grand piano, likely the most expensive new piano available today. The stunning 7'4" black Kuhn-Boendorfer piano (along with its matching bench) is inset with as many as 100-thousand hand cut, polished jewels arranged in tasteful diamond patterns. The instrument has been eighteen months in the making and is a "grand collaboration" between L. Bosendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH of Vienna, Austria and Jon Kuhn, the world's foremost cold glass sculptor.

Richard Ruggero, president of Ruggero Piano, the authorized Bosendorfer dealer for North Carolina, brought the potential collaboration to the attention of Bosendorfer and played a key role in developing the relationship between the piano maker and the glass artist. "Working with Jon Kuhn has been exciting," Ruggero said, "because Boendorfer and Kuhn strive for the same level of perfection. This special Kuhn-Bosendorfer has exceeded everyone's expectations, including my own."

Eric Johnson, Bosendorfer's U.S. Operations Manager and Eastern Regional Sales Manager, noted that "Bosendorfer has worked with top artists and designers since the nineteenth century to create uniquely designed, hand-built instruments of unusual visual as well as musical quality. In that light, we're very excited about our collaboration with Jon Kuhn," he said.

Kuhn's cold glass sculptures are known for their unusual radiance, in which light refracts from intricately crafted core glass of different colors through painstakingly built-up layers of the clearest lead crystal. His cubes, circles and works of varied sizes and geometries are included in the permanent collections of over 35 museums. These include the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Carnegie Museum, National Museum of American Art and The White House Permanent Collection.

Bosendorfer pianos have been valued since 1828 for their exquisite voice and unparalleled playing sensitivity. They are designed and crafted in a way that separates them from every other piano on Earth. The design objective of most fine pianos is to keep sound within the instrument by using dense laminated hardwoods for the rim, thus producing a palette of complex harmonics. In contrast, Bosendorfer's choice of sound spruce for the rim allows the entire case to vibrate as one with the soundboard (like a rare Stradivarius), which the company calls the "resonating box principle." The result is an unusually pure tone with great clarity and depth.

"These instruments truly are one-of-a-kind works of visual and musical art," Kuhn commented for the announcement. "Because of their rarity and craftsmanship -- and the fact that Bosendorfer pianos are still beautiful and playable when they're 150 years old, each Kuhn-Bosendorfer is well worth the investment of 1.2 million dollars. Ignaz Bosendorfer started his company with the idea of building true heirloom pianos, and my staff and I are privileged to help extend that long tradition."

Each instrument will have the purchaser's name written in gold leaf embedded deep within a remarkable crystal fallboard logo. This unusual design feature assures that the initial owner's name (whether art collector or professional pianist) will endure -- along with the piano.

Inaugural presentation of the first Kuhn-Bosendorfer will be in Kuhn Studio's Winston-Salem, N.C. gallery shortly after it is shipped from Vienna, which is scheduled for October.

For more information about the Kuhn-Bosendorfer, please contact the companies directly.

About Jon Kuhn:

Jon Kuhn began his artistic life thirty plus years ago with organic blown glass forms. He then progressed rapidly to more structured glass sculptures that became increasingly complex over time. Each work is one of a kind, whether a spinning cube that casts shimmering rainbows throughout the surrounding space or a crystal table that seems to glow with a soft inner light. Kuhn's glass sculptures are available through art galleries that regularly represent Kuhn's work. They are priced from the low thousands to more than one million dollars.