In the mood for a melody? He's got us playing all right

The grant applications are due in a few weeks.

The form is simple, less than two pages, and the primary questions ask applicants to show how the money they’re requesting will benefit the general public. But there’s a catch.

The money is administered by the Hampton Roads Community Foundation – it provided $12 million in grants in 2010 – and its most unusual program might be the millions it has distributed over the years from the E.K. Sloane fund.

The catch? The money must be used to buy or repair a piano.

Here’s another way to think of it: Edwin K. Sloane has paid more than $2.6 million for pianos he will never play.

If you’ve so much as wandered past a cultural event in Hampton Roads in the past decade, if you’ve heard any kind of magnificent piano playing, if you’ve held your breath while listening to an elementary school accompanist or Harry Connick Jr. perform in Virginia Beach, it’s likely you’ve heard the results of the E.K. Sloane grants.

It may have been at the Ferguson Center at Christopher Newport University in Newport News or at the Sandler Center for the Performing Arts in Virginia Beach or at the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk or at Park View Elementary School in Portsmouth.

You may have tapped your foot to the melodies at unexpected places like the New Life Community Development Center in Hampton or Great Bridge Presbyterian Church in Chesapeake.

Since 1999, the Sloane money has funded 89 grants for 57 organizations. All are in Virginia, and most are in Hampton Roads. Quick math reveals that these are not beat-up old keys to poke out “Chopsticks” or “Heart and Soul.” Often they are top-of-the-line Steinways, among the most exquisite pianos made. They are not cheap.

Hampton University’s piano from the Sloane fund cost nearly $90,000. The university held a recital to dedicate the Steinway Model D.

At the Jewish Museum ∧ Cultural Center in Portsmouth, the staff of the former synagogue rented a piano for its 2009 summer music series. The next year, thanks to a Sloane grant, the artists played on a $45,000 Steinway.

“They are blown away by it,” organizer Zelma Rivin said of the performers.

Sloane grew up among privilege. His boyhood home in Norfolk’s Lochaven neighborhood is now the stunning Hermitage Foundation museum. His parents helped found the Chrysler Museum.

In the early 1960s, he began donating pianos to Tidewater Community College, the College of William and Mary, the Virginia Opera and the Virginia Stage Company.

Before he died in 1997, he set up a permanent fund through what is now the Hampton Roads Community Foundation. He requested the money be spent on pianos. Not tubas. Not organs. Not other instruments. Only pianos.

The difference between a Steinway and the old upright piano at your parents’ house might be hard to detect with an untrained ear. Musicians, however, say it’s not even close.

Premier pianos exhibit a fuller, richer sound. They offer heightened sensitivity for the player and reveal a brilliance in the delivery of the music.

With the May 1 deadline for grant applications approaching, the foundation will bestow pianos on a few more organizations. E.K. Sloane will spend more money on pianos he will never play.

After nearly a dozen years, you would think most of the groups in the region would have the high-caliber pianos they need. Already, almost every one interviewed for this column suggested that Hampton Roads may have the highest number of Steinways in the country, per capita. Yet, the Hampton Roads Community Foundation expects to receive about a dozen applications this year and expects to grant six.

The region’s appetite for music, for fine arts, for pianos – the same appetite E.K. Sloane had, even though he never played – remains strong.

Mike Gruss, (757) 446-2277, mike.gruss@pilotonline.com