Steinway Celebrates John Lennon's 70th Birthday With New Piano

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed)
Nov 2nd 2010 at 3:01AM

To commemorate the 70th birthday of John Lennon, Steinway & Sons has introduced the Imagine Series Limited Edition piano. The Imagine Series Limited Edition is modeled after the white Steinway grand piano that John Lennon gave Yoko Ono on her birthday in 1971, which is still at their famous Manhattan residence, the Dakota.

The music desk of each piano incorporates one of four different John Lennon original drawings--Come Together, the title of the opening track on the Beatles' historic album, "Abbey Road," reflects John Lennon's desire to bring people together; Grand Piano is a drawing that captures the songwriting process; Freda People exemplifies John Lennon's passion for using music for the benefit of mankind; and Self Portrait is perhaps John Lennon's most famous drawing -- as just a few marks on the page and it's unmistakably John. The piano also has the lyrics "you may say I'm a dreamer" on the the bass side of the rim and the opening bars to "Imagine" printed directly on the gold plate of the piano. A medallion on the inner rim shows John Lennon's Japanese chop mark/signature (which he often used to sign his artwork) as well as the series name and number and there is a replica of John Lennon's signature on the treble side of the wallboard.

The Imagine Series was custom built at the Steinway & Sons New York and Hamburg factories and is available through Steinway's factory-owned retail showrooms and network of exclusive Steinway dealers. A portion of the proceeds from every Imagine piano sold by Steinway & Sons will be donated to The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus.

Tags: imagine piano, John Lennon biopic, steinway, Steinway piano, SteinwayMusicalInstruments, yoko ono