Concert Piano to Make Its Debut in October

It was an acquisition that was a long time in the making.

After traveling the highways and byways of New Jersey, working the telephones, and talking to everyone she could, Estelle Goldsmith and the East Brunswick Arts Commission finally have their piano.

“No one was ready to donate a piano, so when I came across this one way up in Morristown, I had been traveling around all over the state,” said Goldsmith, president of the arts commission. “I followed all the leads and traveled throughout the state, and these people volunteered and said they wanted to donate to a good cause.”

Goldsmith said a family that wants to remain anonymous donated a 9-foot Concert Grand Piano to the arts commission. The piano fills a huge need for the commission.

“It’s our mission to bring to a culturally rich community, music, dance art programs and art exhibits. But when it came to musical programs, when we wanted to bring an adequate artist in, we didn’t have an adequate instrument to give them, and we had to rent one. That was expensive and we did that for many, many years.”

The piano will make its debut at an Oct. 9 concert in the . Performing will be Yue Chu, a student at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. A native of China, Chu won his first performance competition when he was 8. At 10, he was among the youngest conductors chosen to lead the youth orchestra and choir in his hometown of Tianjin. After studying in China and Canada, he went on to the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.

Goldsmith said the concert will be the first of many now that the commission has it’s own piano.

“We want to bring in professional artists to perform here since we have this new art center,” she said. “We have this arts center that is only about two years old and it has a lovely stage and very good acoustics for us to present very good artist of quality.”

The free concert will begin at 3 p.m. at the East Brunswick Cultural Arts Center at Ryders Lane and Dunhams Corner Road. The presentation is sponsored by the Township of East Brunswick Department of Recreation and the Arts Commission.