If you haven’t been in the nave of the Lutheran Church of Honolulu lately (and who has, since in-person worship services ended mid-March of this year), you might not know that there are now two grand pianos in the nave. One grand piano, a 9′ Steinway, has been there for many years and is on loan from Mark Wong.

But here is the story of the other grand piano, the Estonia.

Our story actually begins two years ago last fall, when my long-time financial advisor left the company abruptly and I was assigned Dean Spagnoli. In our first meeting, I must have told him that I was an organist, a keyboard musician.

So it was in early January of this year, that Dean sent me the following pictures, with absolutely no explanation.

I wrote back to him, thinking he had sent me pictures of a piano he had: “Who plays in your family?” I must have called him on the phone, because my next question was, “Is it possible to try out this piano to see what condition it is in?”

You see, from time to time, people call me to let me know that there is an organ or piano that needs to be given away, and I figured I needed to know what kind of shape it was in. Apparently the piano belonged to a woman who had died more than two years ago, and the son, who lived in California, wanted to sell the apartment. They had called several schools to find out if they could give the piano away (namely Punahou and Iolani), and got no takers. Dean told me the family wanted to give the piano to a place where students could learn music on it, but so far, they weren’t successful.

To be honest, I had not ever heard of an Estonia piano before, so I Googled “Estonia piano” and found this article:

Estonia is a small republic in northern Europe on the Baltic Sea, near Scandinavia. For centuries it was under Danish, Swedish, German, or Russian domination, and finally gained its independence in 1918, only to lose it again to the Soviet Union in 1940. Estonia became free again in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Piano-making in Estonia goes back over 200 years under German influence, and from 1850 to 1940 there were nearly 20 piano manufacturers operating in the country. The most famous of these was Ernst Hiis-Ihse, who studied piano making in the Steinway Hamburg and Blüthner factories and established his own company in 1893. His piano designs gained international recognition. In 1950 the Communist-dominated Estonian government consolidated many smaller Estonian piano makers into a factory managed by Hiis, making pianos under the Estonia name for the first time. The instruments became prominent on concert stages throughout Eastern Europe and, amazingly, more than 7,400 concert grands were made. However, after Hiis’s death, in 1964, the quality of the pianos gradually declined, partly due to the fact that high-quality parts and materials were hard to come by during the Communist occupation of the country. After Estonia regained its independence in 1991, the factory struggled to maintain production. In 1994 Estonia pianos were introduced to the U.S. market.

In 1994 the company was privatized under the Estonia name, with the managers and employees as owners. During the following years, Indrek Laul, an Estonian recording artist with a doctorate in piano performance from the Juilliard School of Music, gradually bought shares of the company from the stockholders until, in 2001, he became sole owner. Dr. Laul lives in the U.S. and represents the company here. In 2005, at its 100th-anniversary celebration, the Juilliard School named him one of the school’s top 100 graduates; and in 2015, the President of Estonia awarded Laul the Presidential Medal, in recognition of the contribution Estonia pianos have made to awareness of that country. Estonia makes 200 to 300 pianos a year, all grands, mostly for sale in the U.S.

I actually could think of several churches that could use a new piano, so I made an appointment to meet Dean at 927 Prospect Street—what a coincidence! This was the first apartment building in which my husband and I rented in 1977 when we were married!

My first look at the piano revealed a very, very dusty instrument. I first played a chromatic scale from the bottom of the keyboard to the top. Good, no dead notes! Then I played the beginning of Bach’s “Jesu, joy of man’s desiring,” and Dean videotaped my playing to share with the surviving son, who lives in California. The condition of the piano case was pristine, with not a scratch anywhere. Clearly this was a gem!

As soon as I had played a few notes, my first thought was, “My God, this is a beautiful piano with a gorgeous tone!” It was out of tune, but the beauty and quality of the sound was clearly evident in spite of a few out-of-tune notes. Certainly, this piano needed to go where it would be appreciated. As I left the apartment, I noticed that there was an Episcopal Book of Common Prayer on the bookshelf.

I immediately went to the LCH office where I found Pastor Jeff Lilley to tell him that this lovely piano was available to be given away, free. I had already researched the price of 5’6″ Estonia grand pianos to find out used instruments ranged from $17,950 to $23,999. Pastor Jeff said, “But we already have a grand piano!”

I was thinking of a piano for Isenberg Hall (the parish hall) where LCH used to have a Steinway upright piano until maybe about twenty years ago, when a homeless man came round, wanting to be helpful, and decided to wash every dish and every piece of silverware in the church kitchen. The next thing we knew, I walked into Isenberg Hall, and I could see that the walls were dripping with water! He had turned on the hose to wash the walls, and had hosed the Steinway piano in the process! Naturally, that piano was ruined (!) and Isenberg Hall has been without an acoustic piano ever since.

Pastor Jeff Lilley expressed reservations about the piano being kept in Isenberg Hall because of weekly meetings for Alcoholics Anonymous, whose members moved furniture even if signs were placed on them “DO NOT MOVE.” I went back to Dean, and told him sorry, the church would take the piano if it could, but they just didn’t have space for it.

When Dean told the family this news, they were devastated and sorely disappointed. “But that is our church!” I hadn’t heard the family name before, despite all my years at LCH, but Dean asked, “Isn’t Pastor Lilley the minister there?” “Why, yes.” “Pastor Lilley is the one who conducted the graveside service for Janice Chan Parrott, the lady who owned the piano!”

[I have since found out that Janice Chan Parrott (1932-2017) was a 1950 graduate of Punahou School, and her husband, Lindesay “Marc” Parrott, Jr. was a retired teacher at Iolani School. In Janice’s senior yearbook, The Oahuan, she was described as “a wahine with brains, the one gal in our class who can say ‘Je ne sais pas’ and still get an ‘A’ for it.” Her mother, Sau Ung Loo Chan, was the first female lawyer of Asian ancestry in Honolulu, and her father was a friend of Sun Yat-Sen.]

What a coincidence! Out of all the churches I might have considered for placement for this piano, the Lutheran Church of Honolulu was the one the family considered their parish! I told Dean that I would go back to the church and try to get them to change their minds about taking the piano.

Several weeks went by, and I finally asked music director Scott Fikse to take a look at the piano. I picked him up and we both went up to the Prospect Street apartment. He agreed it was a nice instrument and that if the family really wanted to give it to LCH, we ought to find a place for it.

A subsequent meeting with Pastor Jeff, Roy Helms and myself resulted in the proposal of a renovation project for Isenberg Hall, to create new storage areas, including one for the piano! The piano was moved to the church on March 6, 2020 and was professionally tuned on March 18. It is currently being stored in the nave.

In the meantime, the new storage closet for the Estonia piano in Isenberg Hall has been completed. A dedication service is planned for the near future, and more than likely, the event will be live-streamed. I’ll let you know all the details as they become available.

And that is the story of how the Estonia piano came to the Lutheran Church of Honolulu.

I love happy endings, don’t you?!