After a successful Kickstarter campaign (2019) followed by many pandemic-related interruptions (2020-21), we are now building our first lightweight piano. Sign up for the newsletter at the bottom of this page for updates.
FUTURE PIANO is creating a 'Standing Grand': a vertical grand piano. We want to tackle the space limitations of modern homes: our piano offers ‘the sound of a grand in the space of an upright’©. It will be easy to move around, radically space saving, affordable and lightweight.
Future Piano was founded by pianist Sarah Nicolls. She invented the new piano shape through her own style of playing the strings as well as the keys. So, through its revolutionary design, this piano also making every part of every string available to the performer. These ‘inside piano sounds’, used by composers for over 100 years, mean new sounds can be added to the piano's palette. Future Piano was formed in 2017, to lead an Innovate-UK funded Design Foundations research phase. The team that Sarah assembled is now moving towards their first build, of the world’s first ever lightweight ‘Standing Grand’ employing aerospace composites technology.
In 2017-18, Future Piano worked with Keechdesign UK on a human-centred design research phase, where we followed a ‘Discover, Define, Develop’ map to create bespoke visual materials.
Future Piano comprises Sarah Nicolls, pianist, inventor and pioneer and Tim Evans and Chris Vaissiere, aerospace engineers who have worked together for over 20 years. The master piano builder working with the team is David Klavins.
Thanks to our nearly 250 supporters, we raised the money to build our first lightweight piano in 2020!
After ten years of making and playing prototypes, the time has come to build a new piano from scratch.
I am looking at how the piano, a historic and iconic instrument, can be made to fit more appropriately into our modern lives. It seeks to retain the acoustic grand piano with all of its richness of sound and its impressive, monumental stance, whilst also making it a less cumbersome instrument. We aim to radically rethink how a piano works and looks.
