Steinway & Sons has a long history of supporting music festivals and competitions and the proposal that Kevin Rindlisbacher, the exclusive Steinway representative for the Inland Northwest, presented to us can only be described as a "win-win" situation for both Musicfest Northwest and Steinway Piano Gallery of Spokane.

Not only has Steinway agreed to supply Steinway or Steinway- designed pianos meeting all of our piano needs for festival week at no charge to us, they are also contributing funds for awards. In addition, if there is a Steinway Artist on the Adjudication Panel (as there is this year) Steinway would like to sponsor a performance concert by the artist as another way to add prestige and value to Musicfest Northwest. Having Steinway as our exclusive supplier of pianos will provide our young musicians a unique sensory and musical experience of playing on a truly fine quality instrument.

As you know, the board of Musicfest Northwest struggles to meet the financial costs of presenting our annual Festival week. We believe that forging relationships with corporate sponsors such as Steinway & Sons is a mutually beneficial way to continue our 62-year legacy of furthering youth arts education in the inland northwest.