It all started with a young man saying goodbye to his family and friends in a small town in Italy, setting off to Canada with dreams of becoming a musician. His first musical love was the accordion.”I studied accordion in the United States, in New York. Then I came back and opened an accordion studio,” owner Dick Papalia said.
“But by 1965, the accordion business was totally dying, so I got involved with selling pianos.” In 1968 Ottawa Pianos opened its doors.

The rest of the family has become increasingly involved in running the store over the years, with Papalia’s daughter Carmen and granddaughter Lianna now helping out in different capacities.

Carmen Papalia started off simply dusting the pianos, only working at the store full time after university.

“My father said to me, ‘Why don’t you take a year off and help me out?’ And I never looked back,” she said.

Now the general manager, Carmen opened the store’s educational division — Ottawa’s Yamaha Music School — in 1989.

Over the course of five decades, the store has had its brushes with history, such as supplying a warm-up piano for Liberace or the time Papalia introduced Dave Brubeck to Pierre Trudeau backstage at the National Arts Centre.

“The community has given so much to us and we want to continue to give back. There’s more to us than just piano sales—we provide pianos for festivals and competitions, we offer the use of our recital space and concert grand piano, we teach all levels of students, and we look after our customers pianos.” says Carmen. “When people are thinking pianos, we want them to think of Ottawa Pianos.”

Just recently, Carmen and her team, which includes store manager Mitchell Wright, decided to release their official values statement. “You can’t be a business for this long and not have core principles and values,” Carmen notes.

And so, we leave you with this: