Narrow keys, broad minds, no boundaries
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PIANO
A theatrical revue about a young concert pianist and songwriter with the dream to change the world for the better and her struggle achieving that dream over decades. Hannah tells her real-life account about rebuilding her circa 1900 grand piano to have narrow "stretto" keys in 1997 and her plan to introduce it to small-handed pianists everywhere. Nearly 30 years later, the dream finally comes true. After having joined the PASK community (Pianists for Alternatively Sized Keyboards), she ultimately created a global music festival with her colleagues in 2020 to reach the public and media through performance. That festival has influenced pianists and manufacturers everywhere.
Combined with autobiographical songs and stories, plus those about Steinway & Sons, Yamaha, Bösendorfer, and other piano companies, audiences discover why the task to popularize narrow keys is difficult albeit a most worthy mission. Hannah stands for the little people, including kids, small women and men. Petite pianists happen to be the largest demographic of pianists in the world.
The show will include contemporary classical piano pieces that inspired her to rebuild her piano and create the festival, plus her original songs, those by Joni Mitchell and others.
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Die HMDK Stuttgart ist seit 2021 bei den Internationalen Stretto Piano Festivals jedes Jahr mit Studierenden und Lehrenden vertreten. Mittlerweile haben 24 Pianistinnen und Pianisten am Prototyp SIRIUS 6.0 oder am Steinway D Konzertflügel mit SIRIUS 6.0 Klaviatur im Rahmen der Stretto Piano Festivals konzertiert.
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Pianist, singer-songwriter, rock musician, teacher, composer, actor and filmmaker HANNAH REIMANN has played classical music and sang in folk and rock ensembles since she was a child. Over the course of her varied and multi-genre career, Reimann has played concert piano at Lincoln Center, fronted a punk band in Japan, appeared in over twenty independent films, performed with the Main Squeeze Accordion Orchestra and directed the documentary, My Father's House: A Journey of Love and Memory.
1997, Hannah was featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal as a “musician on a mission” for rebuilding her piano with narrow keys (5.9) to fit her small hand. She is one of several pioneers who have raised global awareness about piano key size options for pianists, even collaborating with manufacturers like Steinway. 2021, during the COVID 19 pandemic, she created the annual International Stretto Piano Festivals, featuring online and live concerts of pianists on four continents who own and perform on pianos with narrower-than-standard keys.
Reimann has devoted herself to interpreting the music of Joni Mitchell for much of the past decade. Her show Both Sides Now had a three-week run in 2019 at the Irondale Center, Brooklyn as part of the ON WOMEN theater festival and is featured at 54 Below in Manhattan.
Recently awarded a grant from Café Royal Cultural Foundation to record “Mi Corazòn,” an EP of her original work, Hannah works with Hollywood hit-maker and producer, Peter Rafelson, who wrote for Madonna etc. Her album, First Songs, has been on the Sirius Radio airwaves for over seventeen years. She has been commissioned to create numerous pop, folk, theatre and classical compositions over the past 20 years.
Born in New York to Korean and German parents, Hannah Reimann first sang publicly at age 2, began playing piano at age 5 and joined rock bands as a young teen. She worked with teachers from the Juilliard School as a teen; her focus on Classical music led to numerous piano recitals and learning to arrange and compose instrumental music. She has performed internationally since her teenage years when she was both lead singer for the punk band "Kikigurushii" in Kyoto, Japan and concert pianist in the United States.
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Die Zukunftsinitiative SIRIUS 6.0 der HMDK Stuttgart (2020) zielt auf eine höhere Entfaltung künstlerischen Potentials, mehr Chancengleichheit und Geschlechtergerechtigkeit sowie die Prävention von manueller Überanstrengung. SIRIUS 6.0 Klaviaturen lassen Hände um eine ½ Taste pro Oktave wachsen. Seit 2024 können Pianistinnen und Pianisten dies an einem Steinway D-Konzertflügel der HMDK Stuttgart erleben – erstmalig in Europa!
Wissenschaftliche Grundlage sind Spannweiten-Daten von Pianistinnen und Pianisten, Korrelationen von spielbedingten muskuloskelettalen Überlastungssyndromen und kleinen Spannweiten, schmaler mensurierte Hammerflügel 1785-1825 und der Gender-Gap bei Elite-Klavierwettbewerben.
Die Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg, das Tiroler Landeskonservatorium Innsbruck und die Hochschule für Musik und Theater München haben sich der Zukunftsinitiative SIRIUS 6.0 bereits angeschlossen. SIRIUS 6.0 Klaviaturen sind optional für alle Flügel- und Klaviermodelle von Steingraeber, August Förster und C. Bechstein erhältlich, auf Anfrage auch von Steinway & Sons.
Weitere Informationen: www.hmdk-stuttgart.de/sirius-60 und https://linktr.ee/sirius6.0