Join us for an evening with Adam Stern, acclaimed conductor. ADAM STERN was appointed Music Director of the Sammamish Symphony in the summer of 2015, after having served for several months as Interim Conductor. He brings more than forty years of conducting experience to the orchestra, as well as his characteristic programming which blends time-honored classics with little-known rarities. Stern also conducts the Seattle Philharmonic, of which he has been Music Director since 2003, and which has presented numerous world, U.S. and West Coast premieres under Stern's direction. The Port Angeles Symphony, which played under Stern's music directorship from 2005 until 2014, also enjoyed years of tradition and innovation as well as a widely-acknowledged and -acclaimed rise in its musical standards.
Piano manufacturing is, by its nature, a materials-intensive craft. A modern grand piano contains roughly 12,000 individual components. It requires carefully selected hardwoods — spruce, maple, beech, walnut — sourced from forests in multiple countries. It uses felt, leather, metal alloys, and chemical finishes. Building one well takes skilled labor spanning months.
In January 2026, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas included something that would have seemed out of place a decade ago: a piano technology exhibit generating genuine buzz alongside the televisions, smartphones, and AI gadgets that dominate the show floor. The products on display — connected instruments, app-integrated learning systems, multi-device MIDI setups — weren't novelties. They were the direction the piano industry is heading.
For years, the piano world operated on a fairly clean division: acoustic instruments for those who could afford the space and maintenance, digital pianos for everyone else. That division has been eroding steadily, and by 2026, it has given way to something more interesting — a category of instruments that refuses to sit neatly on either side of the line.
