From wood to music.

On a special connection between wood and music

“Wood is a wonderful raw material and creates wonderful stories. 
Elias Keller and his talent form one of these stories, which we want to tell. 
It is about wood in the instrument, in the acoustics of the room,
bringing out the wonderful sounds produced by Elias and his piano to their full effect.”

Christoph Kulterer, CEO HASSLACHER Group

Elias Keller reckons “wood sounds good!”

At the age of 10, Elias was admitted to the Mozarteum in Salzburg as its youngest pupil at the time. With good reason: his unique talent, ambition, enthusiasm and a very stable family environment have constituted the ideal prerequisites for him to realise the high goals he set himself. “I am forever drawn to the piano; I spend every available minute on it, learning difficult pieces too. Music is my passion”, says Elias, now 11 years old.
Here, the wood from which the piano is made plays a key role. It has to be unique, the workmanship perfect. Therein also lies a connection to the HASSLACHER Group; the passion to produce something special, forever finding new ways, reaching beyond boundaries.

Christoph Kulterer, CEO of HASSLACHER Group, commented after his first personal encounter with Elias Keller: “Elias has so much potential, so the conditions in which he practises have to be optimal. Only then can his talent fully develop. It is precisely here that we can make a contribution through our company. Music and wood, that goes together.” Following an opportunity to look round the practice room at the family home in Weissenstein, for Christoph Kulterer it was clear: HASSLACHER Group would take care of providing Elias with a room equipped to the latest acoustic standards. This involved panelling with plasterboard, laying an oak parquet floor, and fitting the room with acoustic elements. What was to top it off came as a big surprise for the young artist: a Steinway grand piano, which Elias now plays.

First concert in Japan

Following performances at the Casineum Velden and Klagenfurt concert house, in mid-October came Elias’s first guest appearance in Tokyo. “Elias is our musical gift from Austria for our customers and friends of HASSLACHER Group and, together with Ambassador Hubert Heiss, we invited them to a reception at the Austrian embassy in Tokyo on October 22^nd, 2018.”

Elias performed Mozart’s Minuet, Schubert’s Impromptu in A-flat major, the Prélude in C-sharp minor by Rachmaninoff, Beethoven’s Adagio from Sonata No. 1 in F minor and Liszt’s Paraphrase on Verdi’s Rigoletto and, by way of an encore and in honour of Japan, the famous Japanese “Cherry Blossom song”. Having given another concert on Tuesday, Elias will be well prepared for his 2019 tour, which he will undertake together with an ensemble from the Vienna Philharmonic in Japan, each performance carrying this message to the world: “From wood to wonders - from wood to music.”