Steinway & Sons Unveils SPIRIO | r

NEW YORK, NEW YORK (March 5, 2019) — On Tuesday, March 5, Steinway & Sons unveiled the newest evolution of their 166-year-old piano - SPIRIO | r.The new technology was unveiled during an intimate event at Steinway Hall in Manhattan with a special performance by Steinway Artist, Jon Batiste, of The Late Show with Steven Colbert. Batiste, donning a purple suit and New Orleans cap, joked that he was celebrating Mardi Gras with Steinway.Batiste showcased the new SPIRIO | r features: record, playback, and editing in high-resolution. During a soulfully rousing performance of “Bring it Home to Me” by Sam Cooke where Jon recorded himself on a concert grand Model D, and then listened to the recording and played along on his melodica.The evolution of the piano continues with Steinway & Sons’ introduction of SPIRIO | r, the world’s finest high-resolution player piano system capable of live performance capture, playback and editing. A revolutionary blend of artistry, craftsmanship and technology, SPIRIO | r provides artists with powerful new tools of expression, enabling them to access, share and experience performances in high-resolution – enriching connection and intimacy with the beloved Steinway instrument.In 2015, Steinway launched SPIRIO, a high-resolution player piano and masterpiece of engineering that, via an iPad, permits listeners to access a vast library of music, virtually indistinguishable from live performance, including music and video captures of Steinway Artists, as well as Steinway Immortals including Duke Ellington, Glenn Gould, Arthur Rubinstein, and Art Tatum. Each month, the content library available on the SPIRIO app expands, automatically updated from the Cloud.Now Steinway unveils the latest evolution of the SPIRIO innovation, the SPIRIO | r. In addition to providing access to the ever-expanding SPIRIO library, pianists can now record, playback, edit, save, and search their performances in Steinway’s proprietary high-resolution format –. Steinway SPIRIO | r records and delivers the most accurate reproduction of a live performance ever achieved on a Steinway.Jon Batiste and Steinway President and CEO Ron Losby“Steinway’s culture of innovation has truly reached its pinnacle through SPIRIO | r, which provides artists with the capabilities to perform, record, and perfect their performances in a groundbreaking new way,” states Steinway & Sons President & CEO, Ron Losby. “Never before have artists been able to capture the nuance and soul of their playing so precisely on a Steinway. As the maker of the world’s finest piano, we are proud to introduce this new evolution of our beloved instrument, and look forward to the opportunities this technology will bring to professional and amateur pianists alike.”Available in a Steinway Model D, Steinway’s flagship 8’ 11” (274 cm) Concert Grand, or Model B 6’ 11” (211 cm), SPIRIO | r is designed to give artists and engineers intuitive controls in multiple file formats including SPIRIO high-resolution, MIDI and MP3 high quality sampled audio. Native to the SPIRIO app, the SPIRIO editor provides the world’s only advanced iPad–based high-resolution editing capabilities to SPIRIO files, preserving all of the music, allowing users to edit every nuance of their SPIRIO recordings.The artisans at Steinway seamlessly install SPIRIO | r technology at the time of manufacture, ensuring no alteration in the musical performance nor compromise in the instrument’s beauty. SPIRIO | r integrates into multiple musical environments through various forms of connectivity, and the flexibility of remote firmware updates enables users to easily add future features as they are released.For further details and video demonstrations on the SPIRIO | r, visit www.steinway.com/spirio-r.