After 15 years in business and a devastating fire that destroyed everything, a local piano shop has risen from the ashes and is back and better than ever.
Piano has always been a passion for Darryl Fabiani and so it was an easy decision to make it a part of his career.
“To be able to work with my hands and to be involved in music all over the region is pretty cool.”
Fabiani was a student at Western University when he and one of his professors, Steve Grega, decided to start up a business called D & S Pianos, selling, tuning and repairing pianos.
“We started in my garage and then we took the place in Hyde Park. We had what we have here, plus a rebuilding facility at that time,” says Grega.
Unfortunately the repair part of the business came to an end after a devastating fire in 2016 destroyed everything inside the business.
“I’ve been in the business for over 40 years, so you have machinery and tools you’ve acquired over that time and literally anything that could’ve been repaired on a piano we were capable of doing, but then to replace the inventory was very difficult to do,” Grega adds.
But the small team of four didn’t give up, and eventually reopened the business, minus the repairs, at a shop in Komoka.
“After a year of, 'OK, what are we going to do? What else are we going to do?' That’s what we love,” Fabiani says.
D & S specializes in Yamaha piano sales by appointment only, but Fabian adds, “We provide tuning service, we provide repair service in hour home and we can move pianos. We do quite a bit of moving, and we also consider ourselves concert experts.”
Fabiani is often called upon to rent high-end pianos for small to large concert acts, “So any artists that come to the region we get the call and we do the best we can to fulfill their needs,"
Moving forward D & S would like to continue to serve the musical community one step at a time.
