“Music changed my life,” says Gary Grimes. So, for the past two decades, Grimes has shared that life-changing power with underserved youngsters as founder of the Steinway Society of Central Florida.
His journey began in rural Illinois when he was age 5. His non-musician mother drove her son to his grandmother’s farmhouse to get piano lessons. “So I’ve been playing for a long time,” says Grimes. “I’m 87 now.”
As a teen, Grimes also learned accordion and became Illinois state champion in 1955. He still has, though seldom plays, a wheezy accordion from those days. The piano still holds the black-and-white keys to his heart.
A professional performer in both high school and college, Grimes formed the Gary Grimes Quartet and even recorded a single: Rockin’ at the Conservatory. But he promised his mother that he wouldn’t pursue a career as a performer.
In lieu of taking music, Grimes studied prelaw, engineering and marketing in college “but none of it took.” Instead of graduating, he took a job with the Wurlitzer Company, eventually becoming vice president of marketing. He then rose through the ranks at Baldwin Piano Company and bought Lowrey Organ Company—which he ultimately sold to Kawai Pianos.
In the 1970s, he had forged a lifelong friendship with Henry Steinway, president of Steinway & Sons. In 1987, at the urging of Steinway, Grimes became owner of the Steinway Piano Gallery—the region’s only authorized Steinway dealer—in Altamonte Springs.
Grimes and his wife, Kathy, also established the local Steinway Society—a nonprofit that operates a “Keyboards for Kids” program that provides free music lessons and even refurbished pianos to talented but disadvantaged students who couldn’t otherwise afford them.
The program is funded through grants, corporate and individual philanthropy, an annual gala held at Orlando Museum of Art and a partnership with Helpful Hands—a charity that pays for kids in need to participate in educational, cultural, athletic and community enrichment activities.
Keyboards for Kids has grown exponentially, and now has 14 locations—mostly in schools, neighborhood centers and branches of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida—that offer approximately 300 lessons a week and give away 15 to 20 pianos a year to students who have stuck with it and excelled.
Though retired—somewhat—from the store, Grimes remains active leading the society while dividing his time between Orlando and his second home in North Carolina. “Your fingerprints never leave a child’s life you have touched,” adds Grimes. “Hopefully, I’ll touch a lot of lives and change a lot of lives through music.”
Visit steinwaysocietyorlando.com for more information.
