The Piano Guys
| The Piano Guys | |
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The Piano Guys in 2014
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| Background information | |
| Origin | St. George, Utah |
| Genres | Classical crossover, orchestral pop, cello rock |
| Years active | 2010-present |
| Labels | Sony Masterworks/TPG Records |
| Website | www |
| Members |
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| Past members | Tel Stewart |
The Piano Guys are an American musical group consisting of Jon Schmidt, Steven Sharp Nelson, Paul Anderson, and Al van der Beek. They gained popularity through YouTube, where they posted piano and cello renditions of popular songs and classical music. Schmidt and Nelson's music is accompanied by professional-quality videos shot and edited by Anderson and formerly by Tel Stewart. Their first five major-label albums The Piano Guys, The Piano Guys 2, A Family Christmas, Wonders, and Uncharted each reached number one on the Billboard Classical Albums chart.
Anderson owned a piano shop in St. George, Utah when Schmidt asked Anderson if he could practice in his store for an upcoming concert. Months later, Anderson and Stewart started making amateur videos with Schmidt. Soon after, they collaborated with Schmidt, along with studio and music technicians Nelson and Van Der Beek. They quickly began producing weekly music videos and uploading to YouTube.
In June 2011, The Piano Guys won the "Most Up-and-Coming Channel" award in the YouTube "On the Rise" contest, with "Michael Meets Mozart" with Schmidt and Nelson. In September 2012, Sony announced the signing of Piano Guys. This resulted in a global release of the The Piano Guys album, followed by The Piano Guys 2 in 2013 and Wonders in 2014. On August 6, 2016, during their concert at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles, YouTube and Sony presented a plaque commemorating a billion total video views. Several of the group's YouTube videos have over 20 million views, and each has at least 750,000. As of October 2016, The Piano Guys' YouTube channel had over five million subscribers.
Their decision to perform at the presidential inauguration in January 2017 sparked controversy. While other musical groups declined invitations to perform, the group explained on their blog, "We don’t feel right limiting our positive message only to people that believe or act the same way we do.". At the inauguration's Liberty Ball, the Piano Guys played a custom rendition of "Fight Song", without consent from its original artist. This had been one of the songs used by Hillary Clinton during her presidential campaign. The Piano Guys later released a statement noting that their unscheduled rendition of the song was not meant to be political.
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Wikipedia