In the 1993 movie The Piano, directed by Jane Campion, a piano lands on a beach on the rugged west coast of New Zealand, accompanied by a haunting and emotive piano soundtrack. For a 12-year-old named Elicia Casey-Winter, watching the movie, this was the moment she fell in love with both the piano and the soundtrack. 

The scene, she says, made her think of Tasmania because of the wildness of the landscape, but it also made her think of the old clunker in the junk room at her house, a piano that she had tinkered around on after taking some lessons in primary school. 

Her love of the piano has driven her life ever since, taking her as far afield as London.

I met Casey-Winter at the Guildford Young College in Hobart. They have a grand piano and, as I watch, Casey-Winter quickly extracts the entire piano action, and then starts work on adjusting the voicing. It’s a new piano, with new hammers, and requires some settling in. Grand pianos were the original design but their drawback, aside from their prohibitive cost, is the amount of room needed. Uprights (basically a grand tipped upright) were designed to conserve space, although it wasn’t until the early 1800s that the sound of uprights was perfected. 

Her work done, Elicia Casey-Winter sits down at the grand piano and plays the beautiful Michael Nyman soundtrack from The Piano for me.

. . .

Casey-Winter realised early that she loved improvising. When she was practising all pieces at home for her many exams, she found that, rather than playing them properly, she would go off on her own, adding other music. This led her down the road to composing. Then during her time at the Conservatorium (which she began in conjunction with her last year at high school as part of the high achievers program) she applied to go to London as part of the Bachelor Exchange with City University London. Normally six months, Casey-Winter wanted to do a whole year because, “I wanted to be immersed in it, to really delve in and get comfortable in the space. And I loved it. It was an amazing experience where I studied film music and studio-based work, as well as more experimental stuff which I didn’t have the opportunity to do here.”

It was when she arrived back in Hobart that she realised she needed a way to earn a living. While she loved composing, she never expected to make it a profession. At 25, she now runs a successful piano tuning business in addition to being an accomplished pianist and composer. 

When I ask her why she became a piano tuner, she says with a laugh, “Who doesn’t want to learn how to tune their own piano?” On a more serious note, she continues, “It drew me to it. My mum suggested it to me ... it’s something that has always intrigued me. The mechanism is hidden and I was always fascinated as a kid, wanting to learn more about it, opening the lid, just playing one note and listening to the whole sound.” 

The training to be a piano tuner is arduous. For Casey-Winter, it involved a year-long course in Melbourne. She described it as “challenging”. 

“The first month or so you are in a room, in a booth, by yourself with no windows, and you’ve got to tune one note for three hours every morning until you can identify the right sound. Then learn how to adjust it. I did think to myself ‘What life choices have I made?’ ” 

Then she laughs. “You don’t even know if you’re going to be good at it, so it was pretty daunting. But the afternoons were repair and regulating work, which I found enjoyable and easy.” 
It’s an unusual occupation for a woman. During her training there were 12 in the course, nearly all were men. Now the biggest comment she gets when she shows up at people’s houses is, “Oh, you’re not an old man.” 

The high point of her career as a piano tuner (so far) was working for Tim Minchin during his Wrest Point concerts in early 2020, just before covid struck. “It was an amazing experience because I am a huge fan of Tim Minchin and went to all his concerts and events. So to be asked to work for him was very exciting.”

Despite running the business, which leaves her little time, Casey-Winter is not sitting still. Her many connections with the music community are an important part of who she is while her expertise and love of music continues to bring new opportunities into her life. Last year Xyris Saxophone Quartet performed one of her compositions and they have commissioned her to do another one. This year, during the covid lockdown, she started learning the violin with Charlie McCarthy. “I’m really loving it, learning classical and folk.” Recently, she was asked to work with Deborah Wace on a collaborative multidisciplinary project, Sartorial Naturalist, which brings together film, music, art and dance highlighting the beauty and importance of Tasmanian endangered plant species. 

Like the piano on the beach, Elicia Casey-Winter has had an interesting journey. 

More about Elicia Casey-Winters can be found at her two professional websites, pianotunerhobart.com and eliciacaseywinter.com.

Pen Tayler is a Tasmanian writer and photographer. She photographed 12 towns for Towns of Tasmania, written by Bert Spinks, and has written and provided images for Hop Kilns of Tasmania. She is currently working on a book about Prospect and Belmont houses, Coal River Valley.