TOP pianist Martin Roscoe (pictured) will play the first concert on the University of Huddersfield’s new Steinway D concert grand which has cost thousands of pounds.

The recital will be held in the Phipps Concert Hall which is part of the £15m Creative Arts Building opened by the Duke of Kent last autumn.

Prof John Bryan, head of music and drama, who described the piano as ‘the Rolls Royce of concert pianos,’ said it was bought with capital funds provided by the Higher Education Funding Council of England.

Last April, Barry Hynes, the University’s piano technician, Ian Buckle, then university pianist-in-residence and Prof Bryan went to Steinway Hall in London where four ‘identical’ D grands had been prepared for them to try out. Each instrument is built to an identical plan, but is hand finished in Steinway’s Hamburg factory by an individual piano craftsperson who inevitably puts his or her own mark on the instrument.

“Each of the four pianos responded quite differently. Some were quite loud and even brash – particularly suitable for big concert halls, while the one we unanimously selected had a more mellow tone, and a beautiful singing sound that we felt would match the size of the Phipps Concert Hall,” said Prof Bryan.

Celebrated pianist Martin Roscoe will put it through its paces on March 16 (7.30pm).