May I take your harp upstairs, just for a minute?

When Kenyon College decided to buy a new Steinway, it sent three of its staff -- the head of the music department, the piano coordinator, and a professor emerita -- to New York and the showroom of Steinway & Sons, where the piano coordinator (John Reitz, who soloed with the Oregon Symphony at age 21) played five of the pianos.  The school chose one, and plunked down $85,000.  The professor emerita, Camilla Cai, got to see how Steinway breaks in the keys on its pianos: a machine hits all 88 keys at once, over and over.  The Kenyon College Alumni Bulletin quotes her description: "I don't think I have ever heard a sound as glorious, except the time I heard a harp fall down a full flight of stairs."