Steinway & Sons describes its Model D as the top of concert grand pianos, and anyone who has watched a master pianist command an audience for a solo performance in a packed concert hall has probably seen one in motion. Walker West Music Academy and Twin Cities-based Schmitt Music have teamed to bring 4 Steinway Model D concert pianos to Walker West’s Selby Avenue performance space.

The St. Paul music academy will host a ribbon-cutting for its first Steinway Model Ds from 7 to eight p.m. on Friday, marking the primary time in the college’s 34-year history that it would offer brand-new pianos for instruction and performance. The performance hall is situated at 760 Selby Ave., and a Steinway technician will likely be available to elucidate the mechanics of the piano and its sound inflections.

“More often than not people donate pianos to us, and so they’re 30 and 40 years old,” said Braxton Haulcy, the music school’s executive director. “We use them 5 – 6 days per week, and after just a few years, the important thing actions are gone.”

Schmitt Music has donated $30,000 to Walker West toward leasing the 4 Model D Steinways in a rent-to-own arrangement. The varsity hopes to fundraise for seven more pianos within the years ahead.

The ribbon-cutting is a free, all-ages event. On top of a $12 million capital campaign to open the Walker West Music Academy of the long run about 2½ blocks away at 650 Marshall Ave, the expansion would require raising additional sums to rent more staff and instructors, and adding more instruments, Haulcy said. The varsity acquired a handful of latest violins over the previous few years.

More information is online at walkerwest.org.