The crème de la crème in piano names has returned to Tucson.
Husband-and-wife team Philip A. Renaud and Nancy Ostromencki quietly opened Premiere Piano, Home of Steinway at Plaza Palomino, 2990 N. Swan Road, in December.
The 3,600-square-foot gallery, with a built-in recital hall and green room and its staggered rows of grands and uprights, is the only authorized dealer of Steinway & Sons pianos in Southern Arizona.
It offers all three Steinway lines.
Its Essex starter pianos range from $5,400 for an upright to $20,200 for a grand. Its Bostons, the next step up, are $7,600 to $51,400.
Its Steinways, which are produced at the company’s factory in Astoria, New York — the Essex line is built in China and the Boston line in Japan — start at $28,500 and go all the way up to $237,100 for the nine-foot, model D Concert Grand.
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“It is definitely an investment, but a good investment,” said Ostromencki.
Premiere Piano is one of only 70 dealerships throughout the United States and Canada. It replaces the Steinway Piano Gallery at 3001 E. Skyline Drive.
John Simon, the owner of Steinway Piano Gallery, parted ways with Steinway & Sons in April of 2014. Simon now sells pianos and fine art under the name Simon Gallery at the same location.
Premiere Piano opens at a tumultuous time for the piano industry.
Type “piano store” into Google and stories abound about dealerships of various makes and models falling upon hard times.
But according to a study put out in 2014 by the not-for-profit National Association of Music Merchants, piano sales were bolstered in 2013 by improvements in the U.S. housing market.
Retail sales of grand pianos rose 4.6 percent from the year prior, the study said.
For local piano dealers such as Mark Hachenberg, owner of the Hachenberg & Sons Piano Co. at 4333 E. Broadway, sales haven’t fully recovered since the recession went into full swing in 2008.
Hachenberg started the business with his father, Joseph Hachenberg, in 1980. Joseph passed away in 2006, but the shop continues to be a family affair.
Mark’s son Brian does repairs. Mark’s brothers Mitch and Matt deliver pianos and help around the store.
Hachenberg & Sons sells new Yamaha, Mason & Hamlin and Pearl River pianos, as well as different used models.
“We haven’t seen the recovery in Tucson,” Mark Hachenberg said. “There are parts of the country doing much better. Once the base of Tucson’s economy starts to pick up, and the city starts building more houses, we will hopefully rebound at some level.”
Hachenberg says it is his longstanding ties with Tucson’s musical community that allowed the business to hang in there during hard economic times.
“We get a lot of referrals from the university, from Pima Community College,” he said. “Local piano teachers will send students our way. That has been our lifeblood.”
For Ostromencki, who has spent her career playing and teaching piano, having a Steinway store in Tucson was an imperative.
The couple has invested more than $500,000 of their own money into the business.
Renaud is an engineering fellow with Raytheon Missile Systems. Ostromencki runs the store with one part-time employee who comes in three days a week.
Ostromencki wants the gallery to be more than just a place to buy pianos.
The dealership holds regular concerts in its recital hall, every first Friday and second Sunday of the month.
“I grew up with Steinway being synonymous with places where you could go to hear music,” Ostromencki said. “One of the things we want to do again is to be able to make Steinway a place to go and have a lovely time.”
