4 September 2010 : Mr. Kawai visits Pianos Maene

After Albert Maene saw the Kawai pianos for the very first time on the EXPO58 in Bruges, he decided to import the brand in Europe. Since 1960, Pianos Maene is distributor of Kawai. We were the first to distribute this high quality Japanese brand outside of Japan.

To celebrate our 50-year-old cooperation, Pianos Maene and Kawai organized a real Kawai exhibition in Pianos Maene Ruiselede, were you could discover the history of Kawai through pictures and instruments during the entire month of September. The exhibition was opened on the 4th of September by none other than Mr. Hirotaka Kawai himself. He had especially flown from Japan to cut the red ribbon of the exhibition with Chris Maene. During his speech, Mr. Kawai reached out to Pianos Maene. He was honoured to be able to attend this extraordinary event and hoped for a long and fruitfull cooperation between Kawai and Pianos Maeen. Chris Maen was also very enthousiastic; after all, his father was the very fist European dealer who dared to distribute the then still unknown brand of Kawai. The good quality, the warm sound and the reliable craftsmanship made Pianos Maene into the biggest Belgian Kawai distributor in 60 years.

The opening of the exhibition was followed by a concert by Russian pianists Anna Malikova & Victor Lyadov. They played on two Kawai grand pianos RX-6 and SK-6, and unveiled the power of Kawai pianos. They brought us a sublime interepretation of Anton Arensky, Sergei Rachmaninov and the Nutcracker by Tschaikowski. The cherry on the cake was the very entertaining encore. Just as the rest of the public, Mr. Kawai was very enthousiastic. After the concert, there was a chance to talk over a drink and a snack. The 200 Kawai and Maene-sympathizers all agreed: it was a great event.

We would like to thank Kawai once again, for their trust and the fantastic cooperation these last 50 years. We hope our close cooperation may keep on existing. We put our trust into the brand of Kawai and we agree with the words of the father of Chris Maene: "A good piano sells itself".