A little bit of musical history will be made Friday night at the Lexington Opera House. The iconic theater's restored grand piano will return to the stage.
The first musician to tickle those ivories will be up and coming jazz artist Marcus Roberts of the Marcus Roberts Trio. He talked about the honor during an appearance on WUKY’s Curtains at 8 Program.
"I'm looking forward to playing on an instrument where so much work and thought has to go into restoration. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of time. They literally have to work on every single component of the instrument so I look forward to giving it an initial test-drive to see what's going on with it and see what I can bring out of it," Roberts said.
The classic 9’ Steinway “D” Concert Grand piano was gifted by an anonymous donor in 1976, at the time of the original Opera House renovation and had been played by the likes of Randy Newman, George Winston, and Diane Schuur, among others.
The total cost of the restoration project exceeded 50-thousand dollars.
Friday’s performance gets under way at 8 p.m.