More piano history -- and additional exotic pianos -- can be seen in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's musical-instruments collection, which houses the oldest piano in existence, built in 1720 by the Italian instrument maker Bartolomeo Cristofori.
Ms. Kopp also worked with the Dia Art Foundation, the Dance Notation Bureau, the New York State Historical Documents Inventory and the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Musical Instrument Collection.
Miller got a private tour of the Met's instrument collection, which is roughly ten times larger than his own.
"The instrument collection is basically pure neurosis but I do think of instruments as having the best interfaces that have ever been designed," he says.
He also had the advantage of fine instruments: Hindemith arranged for his group to use the historical instrument collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
More down-to-earth keyboards are also on view at the Metropolitan, however, and not just in the musical-instrument collection.
The immediate reason for the closing was roof repairs, but museum officials took advantage of the hiatus to refresh and reconfigure the display of its Western instrument collection.
The exhibition draws chiefly on the Victorian art collections of the Guildhall and the historic scientific instrument collection of Kings College London, to explore the themes of Distance, Resistance, Transmission and Coding.
The Axelrod instrument collection was not only credited with helping lure Neeme Jarvi to Newark as the orchestra's new music director from the Detroit Symphony but also for the jump in symphony donations of $11 million in the past year.
The Finance Committee letter said that "the transaction, which involved the sale of a multimillion-dollar instrument collection for less than half of its appraised value, raises serious questions about what tax benefits have been claimed".
