The Perryville High School music department lost an important piece of equipment, a baby grand piano, in the March 2024 tornado that damaged or destroyed most of the school. Two years later, thanks to a donation from a local non-profit, the school received a new piano in its place.
According to choir teacher Taylor Kluender, the piano, which was purchased from a former PHS student and was lost in the tornado, cost thousands and was fully paid for by years of student fundraisers.
She still teaches out of the same classroom that was damaged by the tornado that rendered the piano unusable.
“The roof of my room was actually lifted up and then slammed back down,” Kluender said. “It’s now been renovated, but at that time there was a lot of rain and moisture. There was dust from the ceiling. There was kind of like a weird mud sludge thing from the wind, stuff you don’t think about that had gotten on the piano. And then that moisture mixed with the lack of air conditioning, the lack of power, the piano rusted out, it was a complete and total loss.”
Following the tornado, Kluender worked with the school’s administrative assistant Angie Pfaff to research ways to get the piano replaced. They looked for cheaper pianos for sale and for places donating them.
Pfaff eventually came across Pianos for People, a non-profit organization based in St. Louis that focuses on equipment donations and education.
“There’s an application process, we wrote a letter and then we were selected to receive a baby grand piano to replace the one that we had lost,” Kluender said. “After talking with the organization they actually do a lot more than just free pianos, they also teach free piano lessons to kids in inner city St. Louis and in the Ferguson area. They also do free piano lessons to inmates in the St Louis county jail, their mission is to provide any sort of piano education to people who are looking for it or need it.”
The piano is a Kawai brand baby grand piano, it was professionally cleaned and delivered to the school by Pianos for People. The organization also offered free tuning services to offset the effects that moving can have on the instrument.
Kluender said that Pianos for People typically only donate pianos to schools in the St. Louis metro area, so it meant a lot for the school that they made an exception for them, donating a piano that was actually an improvement over the old one.
“The piano we were using prior to this, it played, but it definitely was not that sort of musical experience that the students are hoping for or looking for,” she said. “So this just elevates that musical experience we’re trying to provide them, which is the best that Perryville can offer.”
Kluender said the donation will help current and future Perryville students who are interested in music both as a hobby and as a career opportunity, and this donation will help the PHS music department provide those students with a professional level music experience.
“We have a lot of students who participate in all district choirs who represent our county there,” she said. “We have students who represent us at district and state contests and so the closer we can get to providing them with a professional music experience so that they can best represent us at those events, the better. We have students who want to major in music. We have the students who wanna be music teachers or who wanna do this as a hobby for the rest of their lives. They take it seriously. They value it. And so the excitement that filled the room and you know, just there were some happy tears that happened because they care. And this shows that we’re cared about as well.”
