A nine-foot, 1,000-pound grand piano has made the move to a new temporary home at the Maritime Conservatory of Performing Arts in Halifax. The Yamaha CFIIIS is on loan from St. Patrick’s on Brunswick Street while parishioners await the outcome of an appeal with a Vatican tribunal on the closure of the historic church. The Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth announced the closure in 2024 and listed finances, attendance, pastoral capacity, proximity to other churches, as well as structural concerns as reasons. Several volunteers used a boom truck to move the piano out of the church over the weekend and took it to Doctor Piano in Bedford, N.S. It was then transported back to Halifax and put in the conservatory’s Lilian Piercey Concert Hall. “It was quite a visual, watching this gorgeous instrument lifted 30+ feet in the air, and then carefully transferred through a big open window. We had to have the window specially removed for it to fit,” said dean of music Neven Prostran in a news release. “With a piano, the space it lives in is just as important as the instrument itself, so we’re thrilled that the Restoration Society believes in our mission enough to allow our students and faculty to experience it in our Concert Hall.” People won’t have to wait long to hear the piano in its new location. The conservatory is hosting a ‘The Gift of Music’ bursary fundraiser concert on Nov. 1 at 4 p.m. “Student bursaries help ensure every student has a chance to study at the Conservatory regardless of financial background. They let our young musicians know that our community believes in them,” says piano department head Cindy Thong. Pay-what-you-can tickets to Sunday’s concert are available online. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
