Music Teacher - New donation scheme will reallocate pianos

Millers Music has launched a piano donation initiative by recycling instruments that are currently unused in UK homes

Pupils and a teacher at Hatton Park Primary School, Longstanton, with a piano donated through the Piano Equals programme - Courtesy Conscious Communications

The Cambridge-based music retailer announced the launch of Piano Equals on 19 October, International Repair Day 2024.

The new programme has the twin aims of tackling unequal access to music education, and to increase sustainability in the music industry. The company will assess, repair and reuse older domestic pianos and match them with a local school or community organisation that can make use of them.

Drawing on a 2020 government report on greenhouse gases, Millers Music has calculated: ‘At the heart of the initiative is a desire to support the growth of a more equitable and sustainable music industry by addressing the challenge of instrument waste: the incremental carbon cost of using an existing instrument saves an estimated 97% of the carbon footprint of shipping a new one from the other side of the world.’