Facing South: Keyboard Instruments of the Carolina Music Museum

On the Keys

During a rare moment of down time at the Carolina Music Museum, located in Downtown Greenville, I had a chance to bring my microphones, some music and another pianist to sit down and try out the historic keyboard instruments from their Facing South exhibit that will soon be wrapped up to make room for a brand new collection of such extent to warrant a name change. Lisa Kiser is the principal keyboardist of the Greenville Symphony Orchestra. She will perform works by Mozart and Liszt on pianos from 1791 and 1863. We'll perform together a very unusual piece by Mozart written for two forte pianos. The museum happens to have two Broadwood pianos that were made within months of each other making this recording possible. Tom Strange, Curator and Founder of the museum tells us about a special "square" piano that had spent its entire life in South Carolina from 1834 until today. It barely escaped destruction by General Sherman's troops, but was saved because Eliza, the owner, played and sang