Meet Dr Sarah Nicolls, pianist, composer, entrepreneur and the first woman to design a piano in 200 years

Congratulations on winning the Innovate UK Creative Catalyst award! Could you tell us a little bit more about your project?

Thank you! I was really thrilled to win the award after a very competitive round and this really is the project of my dreams. I’m working with structural engineers Atelier One who have worked on some of the most incredible buildings, sculptures and structures in the world. Their founder Professor Neil Thomas MBE has been so inspiring to get to know and I am genuinely excited about bringing to life my ambition for a lightweight vertical grand piano with him. We also have Atlas Composite Technologies as a project partner and they will be helping us to work out how to actually make what we need.

How does your project explore the intersection of engineering and music?

My aim is to revolutionise the piano by removing the cast iron string frame and replace it with carbon fibre. This is to make a lighter, more portable, full size acoustic piano. The engineering challenge is the 20 tonnes of tension in the strings which need to be held firmly in tune to give that beautiful piano sound we’re all familiar with. It is fascinating working out how to blend traditional craftsmanship with the latest in materials and structural engineering and I love convening the different experts this project requires.

What has your experience been like as a Visiting Researcher at King’s College London?

It has been so nice to reconnect with King’s – I studied Music here 1992-95 and hadn’t had a great deal of contact since until recently. I have been made to feel extremely welcome by both the Music and Engineering departments and I’m particularly excited that I happened to have joined right when MARC – Musical Acoustics Research – is being started up across departments. For me, interdisciplinary research and making is really where the fun stuff happens and I love learning new things, so being able to go to seminars and learn from esteemed colleagues is really wonderful. I look forward to getting more involved.

If you could only take one piece of music, one tool and one famous celeb (alive or dead) to a desert island, who or what would you take and why?

I struggle with questions like this as I'd answer differently at a different time of day, in a different mood, or in different weather. I’d cheat and take one instrument to make sound with, something sharp and strong like a long screwdriver – for getting into coconuts! – and – wow, a person! Someone who would be really interesting to talk to. But also fun. Someone who really knew about nature. Maybe someone who knows about survival. Foraging? Or otherwise someone who would simply make me laugh until we died of starvation together….

Do you have any advice for young engineers?

My advice to all young people is the same: find your questions.  Find what interests you and just keep following what it is about that thing, question what you see is wrong in the world or could be better, keep asking, keep digging into it and be ready to let your questions take you wherever they do, and to change with you as you get older!