Manuel Bernaschek, the current owner of Stefano Ricci, the luxury clothing line known as the “King of Ties” in downtown Vancouver (the only store in Canada), has recently collaborated with Showcase Pianos, a Lower Mainland-based piano retailer and academy.

The music video posted on Showcase Pianos’ website titled The MOST BEAUTIFUL Recording of CHOPIN on Piano (https://showcasepianos.com/the-most-beautiful-recording-of-chopin-on-piano/) the pianist is Libby Yu, who recently earned her Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of British Columbia. The piano piece/recording was done on a California Walnut Fazioli piano, which, if it sounds fancy and expensive, it is. I don’t know much about pianos, but it looked excellent and sounded just as good. Now, I’m not a piano guy, nor am I a classical music guy (though I do know Beethoven’s 5th symphony when I hear it). Still, when I first watched the music video, I was amazed at how great it sounded. The movement of her fingers across the piano was crazy to me. They were moving so quickly yet so elegantly.

You might be curious why a luxury clothing store owner made a music video for local pianists, which is a fair question. Bernaschek has owned and operated the Stefano Ricci store located on Georgia Street in downtown Vancouver for the last fourteen years and is the president of Showcase Pianos. Through those many years has met lots of local musical talent could benefit from a little extra publicity. Some of those talents include Libby Yu, Evgenia Rabinovich, who studied at Mannes School of Music in New York; Wayne Weng, who has earned degrees from Eastman School of Music as well as from Yale University, Carol Zhang, currently studying at Boston University, Swedish pianist Carl Pettersen, who received his Ph.D. from the Academy of Music in Karkow, and Award-winning amateur pianist Daniel Chow.

Even if you’re not into pianos or classical music, give it a watch/listen, and I assure you it will not disappoint.