Photo: What $35,000 will get you on the market.
If you have attended a concert or the spring musical in the Belmont High School auditorium, you’ll have heard the school’s grand piano accompanying choral and singing groups and soloists for nearly 80 years, moving from the former high school (the site of the old Wellington Elementary School on School Street.)
It was also used to begin annual Town Meetings with Sandy Kendall’s rendition of “God Bless America.”
But eight decades of nearly daily use had affected the instrument’s sound quality and tuning mechanism to the point now where the piano needed to be retired
The cost of replacing the existing instrument will not come from a capital budget request but the generosity of a Belmont resident. Last week, Belmont Superintendent John Phelan accepted an anonymous gift of $35,000 allowing the High School’s Visual and Performing Arts Department to purchase a new grand piano for the school.
Phelan – who hopes one day to thank publically the person who made the gift – said groups like the Foundation for Belmont Education, the Belmont Savings Bank Foundation and people who time to time want to help the schools in ways big and small “makes this such as great community.”
OH MY GOSH! I absolutely LOVE how our neighbors see a need, understand the importance, and step up to the plate. That this was anonymous is so damn smart because we’d all be standing in line to give great big hugs, but I do hope we someday learn who this very wonderful person is. Belmont is the COOLEST and I can’t wait until the next concert!