Steinway & Sons
Musicians know: when you search for the best piano, you'll find a Steinway. Ninety percent of concert pianists choose Steinway pianos as their instrument, and across the world, nearly every recital and concert hall is graced by a Steinway. Using 170-year-old artisanal techniques, they take over one year to make and are coveted heirlooms signifying traditional craft and excellence.
In 2014, Steinway took a huge leap forward by adding embedded player and recording technology into their grand pianos, in a product line called Spirio. While player technology existed in the market already, there were no offerings that could capture the subtle sounds and nuances of piano performances that Steinway pianos are made to produce. Spirio changed this.
Steinway Spiriocast is the newest and most impressive function of Spirio. This revolutionary technology enables a performer's live keystrokes to be mirrored in real time across multiple pianos, creating a unique experience of simultaneous performances in different locations. Spiriocast brings the music of world-renowned artists to every Spirio Piano worldwide, offering an experience that is communal yet also intimate.
Spirio also brought about a rare union between fine art and technology, and when I learned about it, I was inspired to make my mark on it.
Steinway Spirio iPad App Redesign
Originally developed to coincide with the debut of the Steinway Spirio piano, the Spirio iOS app remained mostly unchanged for several years, and while new functions like Spiriocast had been added, the overall design no longer met modern expectations. Steinway yearned for a new user experience to bring their app forward and showcase the burgeoning body of world-class performances available in the catalog.
Leading development for the Steinway Spirio iPad app redesign, I spearheaded the modernization of the app's interface and functionality. We approached the redesign with inspiration from Spotify and Apple Music, adopting their cleaner aesthetic while ensuring a rich and immersive experience. The updated interface features more vibrant visuals and refined navigation that makes it easier for customers to discover more of the thousands of tracks recorded by Steinway artists in the Spirio Studio or broadcast live on Spiriocast.
As a key technical step, we designed a flexible data model that allowed Steinway to maintain precise control over both the layout and content of different areas in the app. This includes the app's navigation structure, making it easy to deploy content updates over time and reveal new categories.
As a result of the redesign, we observed a significant improvement in the distribution of selected works, categories and playlists. Users are now exploring a broader range of content, deepening their overall experience with Spirio.
Bringing Spiriocast to China
While Spiriocast had been a cornerstone feature of Spirio since its addition, it was not available in every key market, namely in Steinway's leading one, China. Steinway had not yet resolved how to stream video and data across the country's Great Firewall.
I led the research and development of a proprietary network architecture that successfully overcame the technical barriers preventing Spiriocast from working in China. This breakthrough allowed Chinese Spirio owners to experience live performances from artists worldwide, including concerts broadcast from as far away as New York City. In October 2024, Lang Lang debuted the technogy from the Beijing Performing Arts Center.
This project was instrumental in Steinway's global strategy to foster growth in the Chinese market, where the arts play an important social role. By ensuring that Spirio owners in China could enjoy the same seamless, real-time performances as customers elsewhere, the project not only has expanded the global reach of Spiriocast but will now also enhance the cultural exchange between artists and audiences around the world.
