Chicago AMICA has done about ten concerts with player pianos and will,
the first week of April in Aurora, Illinois sponsor a week long festival
to commemorate the l00th anniversary of the player piano.

During this week Rex Lawson and Dan Wilson will be playing a l9l5 Aeolian
645/88 note push up in several concerts.  One concert is a master's class
on the player piano, another concert a concert at a local high school
with the push-up and a 9' Steinway.

The biggies are a jazz concert with a professional jazz band doing
Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in the original form as the Paul Whitman band
did it in the l920's, and on Sunday Rex will play the Mendelssohn Piano
Concerto No. 1 with a full symphony orchestra (Fox Valley Symphony) in
the beautifully restored Paramount movie theatre completed in l933.

In the past I have helped produce concerts with orchestras in this
country and made connections with the Pianola Institute in England who
helped sponsor the Chicago Youth Symphony in an England tour which ended
with a concert in Queen Elizabeth Hall with two pianolas doing Carnival
of the Animals.

We have done a few concerts with only a reproducing grand on stage;
usually we like to go the whole route and combine the player piano with
orchestra as was done in the l920's.  Singer and player piano concerts
are easy to do all you need to have rolls which are accompaniment rolls.

Ampico system had such rolls and I am sure the others systems had them
also or use regular 88 note rolls form current sellers such as QRS.  
Come to our festival and spend Saturday evening with the gang from the
festival at a local pub drinking brews and pumping rolls and pump me 
for more info.

Jim Edwards,   Wynette Edwards' roll-mate