The University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna is situated at the heart of European music and art. As a city renowned for its illustrious musicians like Mozart, Beethoven, Schoenberg, and many others, Vienna’s music school strives for excellence in all its activities and programs.
To this end, the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien (MDW) sought to acquire top-quality instruments for its students in 2023. The University needed three performance-level pianos: one for piano solo performances, another for art song interpretation as an accompanying piano, and a third for pedagogical and didactic use.
Manufacturers were invited to participate in the selection process by presenting one piano for evaluation and testing at the University. Four manufacturers responded: Bösendorfer, Bechstein, Blüthner, and FAZIOLI. While Bechstein offered the lowest prices, the University had predetermined that only 20% of the evaluation would be based on cost. Artistic value was weighted at 35%, with technical suitability and quality each accounting for 20%. Bösendorfer presented their model 214.
In respect to the technical suitability and quality, the University’s technicians, as was later revealed, found that FAZIOLI’s pianos held up much better than Bösendorfers and Steinways. Notably, Steinway did not participate in this high-profile tender due to internal issues.
After a thorough evaluation, the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien decided to purchase three FAZIOLI pianos, specifically the FAZIOLI 212 model. This purchase increases the FAZIOLI count at the University to eleven instruments.
We congratulate the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Wien on acquiring three FAZIOLI pianos and enhancing their collection with some of the finest instruments available in the world.
If you have spent any time on YouTube, Spotify, or TikTok in 2026, you have almost certainly heard it: the unhurried piano chord, the soft crackle of vinyl, the gentle rain in the background, the tempo that never rushes. Lo-fi music — specifically its piano-centered variants — has become the defining sonic backdrop of concentrated work, study, and intentional rest for a generation of listeners. And it is doing something unexpected in the process: it is turning passive listeners into curious beginners.
Something is happening in piano studios across the country that teachers from a generation ago would find surprising, and perhaps gratifying: the students walking in for first lessons are increasingly not children. They are adults in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond — people who took a few lessons as kids and stopped, or who never started at all, and who have decided, in 2026, that now is the time.
Every few years, a piano competition produces a result that changes the conversation about what classical music is, who plays it, and where it is going. The Van Cliburn Competition's 2022 discovery of Yunchan Lim was that kind of moment. In 2026, the competition circuit — from New Orleans to Salt Lake City to the Pacific Northwest — has continued to surface talent that makes a compelling case for the health of the art form, even as the broader classical industry navigates a complex moment.
