Sprinkler fault destroys 100 orchestra instruments
NewsA malfunction in the sprinkler system has cost a Japanese orchestra almost all of its instruments, including a brand-new $90,000 Steinway piano.
Several musicians suffered injuries in falls as they tried desperately to rescue instruments. The ultimate lost is estimated in millions.
The disaster, first reported today, befell the Sinfonietta Shizuoka early one afternoon in the middle of September as the players were gathering for a performance.
More than 100 instruments were damaged.
That’s enough to give most instrumentalists nightmares. And it can happen nearly anywhere: I remember showing up for an eagerly awaited event (not musical) that was abruptly terminated due to a sprinkler system error. The cause? Someone in a hotel room decided to use the sprinkler system head to hang up their heavy wedding dress on its coathanger. That triggered water throughout the complex.
Not to say that it didn’t happen, but I question whether it happened the way you suggest. Most sprinkler systems use sprinkler heads that open at a certain temperature, when a wax plug melts. There is no communication to other heads to turn on the water. But even a single head, once active, can dump a tremendous amount of water into inconvenient places if not immediately halted. More likely, I think, that someone damaged the head as you suggested, and it took the staff a while to get the water shut off (perhaps the building was evacuated thinking that the alarm signaling that water was flowing in the sprinkler tree meant there must be a fire).
Interesting – I did not know that. You never know what you’re going to learn on this site!
That’s not how sprinkler systems work. One heat activating doesn’t activate them all like in the movies.
Insurance covers it all.
Are you a musician who owns an instrument that is valuable to you?
Each musical instrument is unique, even if made to the same specification in the same workshop/factory. Insurance may cover the cost of repairs or replacements, but is unlikely to cover the full cost in time and effort in seeking and selecting the right repair/instrument, as well as the inevitable time and effort in getting accustomed to a different instrument.
What a ridiculous statement.
If an instrument is water damaged money doesn’t solve the problem.
But it still enables you to get another instrument. No insurance, you simply lose everything. No one is denying this is a tragic accident but there hasn’t been a loss of life.
MONEY cannot replace instruments which are hand crafted, antique, and irreplaceable! Only a philistine would contemplate it.
Yes, one consolation.
Insurance can’t replace old, perhaps one of a kind instruments. Steinway pianos can be replaced, but not most string instruments.
Händel, Smetana, Strauss, and Strauß spring to mind.
When I toured the Vienna State Opera House in 2012, a guide explained that they don’t have a sprinkler system for precisely that reason.
I described for him a similar disaster that befell the Philadelphia Orchestra in the then-new Verizon Hall during a rehearsal of “Le Sacre du Printemps”, ca. 2002. A piano was lost but the musicians were at least able to save their instruments. Eschenbach, the conductor, later referred to it as “The Rite of the Sprinkler”.
Snap!
Fair enough, for Vienna, if their fire codes allow them to have such a crowded public place without sprinklers, but fire protection people will tell you that sprinklers are not intended to save property. They are intended to save lives. (And the statistics show that they do so remarkably well–something like there’s only one known fire in which two or more lives have been lost where there was a functioning sprinkler system.)
The Rite of Sprinkler
Brass instruments got a well deserved cleaning…
The Japanese invest an incredible amount of money in instruments. Amateur musicians in Japan sometimes own instrument collections that legendary classical musicians could never afford. But an instrument can never be a substitute for creativity. They should invest more heavily in things like creativity discovery programs.
The statements made by the orchestra officials regarding this accident are incorrect.
1) The accident happened during the break before the concert started.There were only pianos and percussion instruments on stage.There were no privately owned stringed instruments.There may have been an orchestra-owned contrabass.
2) This orchestra does not have a monthly salary system.
It is a “Member Orchestra” in which the conductor gathers the necessary musicians for the program he wants to do. The reward is small. Musicians are therefore poverty・・・・Stringsmusician don’t own an expensive instrument.
3) The instrument guarantee for the orchestra and its musicians is about US$70,000 plus a Steinway piano.
The story must be missing some essential details.
Fire sprinkler systems are not centrally triggered. Each head has a heat-triggered plug that melts out when a fire raises the temp to melting point.
A WHOLE ROOM of sprinklers going off with no fire sounds incredibly unlikely.