Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Virtual Fireside with the CEO of Hailun USA- Basilios Strmec

The answer to the question certainly involves on a personal level the drive and willingness to take risks on Mr. Chen’s part….and then some serendipity. Together with his wife, Faye Chen, Mr. Chen succeeded already at becoming a supplier to other piano manufacturers that was respected for the accuracy and reliability of its production. From a business perspective, the factory had developed a core competency in production long before it was decided to venture forward from being a supplier to becoming a piano manufacturer in its own right. The significant facilitating event that transformed the company was the meeting of Mr. Chen with the owners of Wendl & Lung from Vienna, Austria (WL). WL was a respected and old piano manufacturer in its 4th generation in Vienna. However, in order to compete with Boesendorfer or Schimmel, WL simply lacked the necessary economies of scale.

Thus Peter Veletzky and Ernest Bittner and his wife Lin Bittner, the owners of WL decided to seek to transfer their know how, production patterns, etc to Mr. Chen with an agreement that WL would be able to supply the European market. Over time both parties came to realize that the chemistry was right, and that they could work well together. I think that cooperation was a milestone in the development of Hailun. It also opened the European market. Keep in mind that Mr. Chen owned his factory outright and was not government controlled- so the factory developed a keen awareness that it can only succeed if it listens carefully to its customers. Subsequently, Mr. Chen brought Mr. Emerson on board who had worked for Baldwin and later for Mason & Hamlin. Thus the groundwork had been laid and other specialists followed (Mr. Zlatkovic from Austria, Mr. Paulello from France, etc.).

Maybe one more aspect – that is worth mentioning: everyone who has had a chance to live in a different country knows that it is more than just a different language that makes communication and working together difficult. In the case of Hailun Piano Company foreign engineers spent quite some time there. For instance, Mr. Emerson flies to China 6 times a year and stays for up to 4 weeks. Mr. Veletzky does the same. So there needs to be a certain level intercultural sensitivity that allows all participants to enjoy working together. The wider Hailun team brings such a quality to the table and you can not emphasize that skill enough when working over continents, cultures, and languages.

The next question was in regards to the Pedale Harmonique. This was developed by Wendl & Lung and remains a special feature of only WL. Such instruments can be obtained through us and there are some in Canada already.

Another question from a Pianoworld Member in Florida:

When is a Hailun Concert Grand coming out?

Well, the fact is that Hailun already has a concert grand that was designed and several have already been built. It is the Hailun Grand 277. However, we have not released it to the market. I guess, our hesitancy with presenting a concert grand centers simply around the fact that a concert grand is a major statement for a company. We discussed presenting it at NAMM, and we had already informed some of our Authorized Merchants about it. But during my trip to our factory, I listened to it and it just did not sound as inspiring as it should. We then agreed that Mr. Emerson would change some details. However, those were not implemented in time to come to NAMM.

Some consumers might ask themselves why does it take so long to get it right. The answer is that designing a grand piano includes quite a litany of trial & error runs. I have been personally involved in the launch and market introduction of seven piano models and one piano application. One of these instruments was a concert grand- and it took us quite some time to come to the point where we “were happy”.

Maybe, I should also define what “being happy” means in this context. The process of evaluating especially a concert grand should and must be completely detached from design and production. While I love piano music, and attended hundreds of concerts, and believe that I have an ear for a good instrument, it ultimately takes committed pianists to play the piano and explore its possibilities. Professional pianists and piano performers hear differently and they look for different things in the piano.

They are also capable of detecting sections of sound that have different colors or other differing in some other quality. We have been engaging testing the new concert grand and inviting pianists to give us structured feedback. We have an influential piano professor and performer from the University of Kansas who will be visiting and have a chance to play the concert grand at our factory. So – I guess the short response to your question is: If all goes well the Hailun Concert Grand will be presented at NAMM 2011.

In wrapping up: We posted several pictures from our most recent trip to China. The first two pictures were taken during a Quality Sensitivity Training Session. Mr. Keith Bowman and Mr. Mike Carraher presented the material to the heads of the piano deparments. I am aware of other Asian companies doing quality work but I believe that Hailun is the only one- or one of the very few- that go to this length.

I have two more questions left.

One is from Mr. McBiff - which I will answer in a Private Message and the other one has to do with Hailun's action design for which I will consult one of our engineers and reply also in a private message.

Again, please forgive the many typos. We will clean them up in the next week.

Hope- this was a interesting to some of you.

I am currently searching for my first piano and would like to thank you for the background information and intro to Hailun.

"Are there sound snippets of the "pedale harmonique" available? Or is it ever going to be built-into Hailun branded instruments (I understand it is only in Wendl & Lung for now)."

I heard it a week ago and I also made a recording then. Here is a snippet

pedal harmonique sample

BTW the first half a second is without the pedal