All-Steinway School Celebration May 20

A special All-Steinway School Celebration is scheduled for Friday, May 20 at 7:30 pm in the Old Administration Building Auditorium to celebrate the All-Steinway School designation for the college. At the free event, Steinway’s New York Senior District Manager, Bob Snyder will present an All-Steinway School plaque to Fresno City College to recognize this milestone. The event will also feature a short concert by Steinway artist, Ksenia Nosikova, a world renown concert pianist.

Nosikova will also teach a Master Class to FCC music students on Friday at 11:00 a.m. in the Recital Hall (MS 132).

It was about 20 years ago that the idea of Fresno City College becoming an All-Steinway School began to take shape. It began when retired music instructor Olga Quercia helped raise funds to purchase a nine-foot Steinway for the newly renovated Old Administration Building Auditorium. Her early fundraising efforts paid off. Olga, who taught piano at FCC from 1996 to 2014, was able to raise $15,000.

After her retirement, Olga’s efforts had laid the foundation for new piano instructor, Dr. Brandon Bascom to pursue the coveted All-Steinway School designation. In 2014, prior to the actual purchase of the grand piano, an inventory analysis was completed by Heyner Oviedo, owner of the Steinway Piano Gallery in Fresno. At the time, the college had three Steinway concert pianos, one of which was over 100 years old. Dr. Bascom submitted proposals to the college to purchase the Model D nine-foot concert grand piano. The plan was approved and Bascom traveled to New York to pick out the instrument.

Dr. Bascom continued to submit proposals each year. In subsequent years the college purchased two Model B seven-foot Steinway concert pianos for the Recital Hall and Theatre, and Model B concert grands for the piano studio and the piano lab. “The opportunities for our students are amazing as they can now practice and perform on the best piano made in the world,” said Bascom.

In order to reach this designation as an All-Steinway School, 90 percent of all the performance and teaching pianos must be Steinway. “Students at FCC and the Central Valley deserve the best as they prepare to move on in their education they will now experience the best because of this All-Steinway School designation,” said Quercia. “We are now the first college in the valley to have this extraordinary and prestigious recognition,” she added.