Fazioli
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| Industry | Musical instruments |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1981 |
| Founder | Paolo Fazioli |
| Headquarters | Sacile, Italy |
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Key people
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Paolo Fazioli |
| Products | Grand pianos |
| Revenue | 6.500.000 € (2012) |
| Website | fazioli.com |
Fazioli Pianoforti (Italian pronunciation: [faˈtsjɔːli]) is a high-end maker of hand-built pianos, based in Sacile, Italy. Fazioli produces about 100 pianos a year from its single factory.
Paolo Fazioli was born in Rome in 1944, into a family of furniture makers. In 1969 he graduated from the University of Rome with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and in 1971 received a diploma in piano at the G. Rossini Conservatory in Pesaro, under the instruction of Sergio Cafaro. In the same period he also earned a master's degree in Music Composition at the Academy of St Cecilia, where he was guided by the composer Boris Porena.
In the meantime, his elder brothers took over the family business, manufacturing office furniture, including wood furniture using rare and exotic woods such as teak, mahogany and rosewood. Paolo Fazioli joined the company, however, he left to pursue building pianos. At the end of the 1970s, the Fazioli Piano Factory was built within the Sacile furniture plant, about 40 miles north of Venice.
In 1979 he started designing his first prototype for a baby grand piano. He was assisted by a small team consisting of Professor Pietro Righini, an expert in musical acoustics, and Professor Guglielmo Giordano, an eminent wood technologist, as well as Virgilio Fazioli and Lino Tiveron. The prototype of the F183 model was completed in June 1980, followed at the end of the year by the prototypes of two other models, the F156 and the F278. In the latter half of the year, work began on the prototype of the F228 model.
In February 1982 all four models – the F156, F183, F228 and F278 – were shown at the Frankfurt Musikmesse. The production area within the MIM factory was expanded to 600 square metres, increasing production to 2 pianos per month.
In 1983 the company began collaborating with Zeltron (Zanussi Institute for Research) with the aim of further improving tonal quality. Initial success followed in 1984 and 1985 when well-known pianists including Aldo Ciccolini, Alfred Brendel, Martha Argerich, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Lazar Berman, Nikita Magaloff, Michel Beroff, Annie Fischer, Louis Lortie and many others began to play Fazioli pianos, although Alfred Brendel, Martha Argerich, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Nikita Magaloff, Michel Beroff, and Annie Fischer own and exclusively endorse Steinway & Sons pianos today. A number of important concert halls purchased the F278 concert grand piano, and the firm started exporting to major European countries and the United States.
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