Culver City High School Receives Yamaha Keyboard Donation

’s music program has a lot to celebrate with the donation of a new Deluxe Yamaha Keyboard.

The keyboard was donated by Albert Courey, who has two children in Culver City High School’s Academy of Visual and Performing Arts program. Tony Spano, long-time music teacher at the school who also serves as its Creative Director of Music and Co-Director of the Culver City High School Academy of Visual and Performing Arts, said receiving such a gift is invaluable to the music program.

“I was happy to add another instrument to our inventory,” Spano said. “It really fits as an educational tool. The kids are excited because they have a new tool to play with.”

A district manager from Yamaha showed up at the school earlier this month to drop off the keyboard and explain how to use it which was “really nice because it’s a complicated piece of technology,” Spano said.

The keyboard, which is worth $1,300, arrived just in time to be included in the orchestra pit of last weekend’s performance of the musical, “Sweeney Todd."

Spano also plans to use the keyboard for music appreciation classes and music theory since the instrument is able to teach students to “write better and play better,” he said. Students will also be able to use it to write film scores.

Courey won the keyboard at a drawing held at a free concert last fall sponsored by the Symphonic Jazz Orchestra.

Spano said it wasn’t until he saw the keyboard for himself that he realized what a gem the school had received.

“I just appreciate that that was a very generous donation they made,” Spano said. “Those kinds of things are very important to our program.”