‘My first thought was that it was a wreck’: Century-old piano restored

A century-old piano has taken centre stage in one of North America’s most visited monuments. The Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal is hosting a series of concerts featuring music from its newly acquired instrument to raise money for a years-long restoration project to preserve this jewel of history.

The piano was made by famed Parisian manufacturer Gaveau, founded in 1847. Montreal restorer Daniel Farah bought the piano from an estate in 2008. Farah has been in the business of giving new life to old pianos for a quarter of a century. The instrument was in far from mint condition at the time.

“My first thought was that it was a wreck,” says Farah. “But I could see it was a wonderful design.”

Years of dry winters and summer humidity had inflicted a lot of damage. The piano had to be rebuilt from the strings to the sound board to the housing (the outer structure).

“I stopped counting how much time I spent on it when I reached 800 hours,” he says.

His goal was to respect the history of the piano while bringing it into a new era.

“This piano will surprise you sometimes,” says Farah. “It is from the Impressionist era, where people were trying a lot of different things with music, so it has to have a more open, varied sound.”

A sponsored donation led the piano to a new home at the Basilica, through the foundation which is raising money to complete a major undertaking to restore the masterpiece of Gothic revival architecture.

From the Maurice “Rocket” Richard funeral to Celine Dion’s wedding, the Basilica has been the site of ceremonies that captured Canada’s attention.

However, parts of the building were threatening to crumble as the jewel of patrimonial history began to show its age.

Workers have been fixing the towers and rebuilding the stone facades since 2020, but still have five years of repairs left.

“The main challenge we have is expertise,” says Notre-Dame Basilica Director of Operations and Tourism Activities Mathieu Verreault.

The piano will feature in a series of concerts with proceeds going to the restoration project. The program includes a performance spotlighting jazz music in cinema, which is not exactly traditional church fare.

“It’s pretty new that we feature jazz music,” says Verreault, adding that he hopes this will attract young and old. “Before other Reverends did not allow it. They were not into that modern music.”

That modern music will come from an old piano, marking a new chapter in the history of the Notre-Dame Basilica.

Inaugural concerts for the restored Gaveau piano will be held at the Sacred Heart Chapel of the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal:

Jazz in Cinema on Saturday July 19, 2025, at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.

Mozart and Schubert Piano trio on Saturday August 9, 2025, at 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m.