Hallo All,  I have been following with interest the correspondence
about installing Ampico actions in to concert grands and am surprised
that nobody has mentioned the project of the late Norman Evans of
London.

Norman installed an Ampico action into an Estonia concert grand which
was used, I believe, for several concerts and a series of recordings
by Decca on the l'Oiseu lyre label, featuring the Ampico recordings of
Rachmaninov, Rosenthal and Lhevinne.

Having heard this instrument several times and seen the superb quality
of Norman's workmanship anyone with the slightest doubt as to the
viability of such a project should try to get hold of the records (not
available at the present time) .

I can't comment on the technical side of this, I don't actually know if
Norman stripped an action from another player or if he just happened to
have a spare action on the shelf, but the results were of a quality
that was truly musical and that is a rarity on reissues of player piano
music.  Perhaps somebody out there knows more about this subject?

Tony Dellaway
France

 [ Dan Wilson wrote in 980903 MMDigest:
 [
 [> One of the well-known (and in his case, highly thought-of)
 [> restorers in the London Player Piano Group, Norman Evans,
 [> was an agent for Estonia and Belarus pianos, made respectively
 [> in Estonia and Belarussia.
 [>
 [> (He wheedled a brand-new concert grand out of Estonia on the
 [> understanding that he could get a top-class recital on it in London
 [> and when it came, put an Ampico action in it and did just that,
 [> under PPG auspices, in 1977 or 1978.  One of the outcomes was the
 [> Oiseau-Lyre series of Ampico recordings which were made using it in
 [> Kingsway Hall, London, but not issued until well into the 1980s.)
 [
 [ The recordings, realized by Denis Hall and Norman Evans, also
 [ were released on Decca Historic label (MMD 961017).
 [
 [ -- Robbie