Castellón-born Zayda Jiménez designs ‘high-end’ piano stools that she sells to clients in Germany, France, England and Austria.

Although the coronavirus pandemic has turned our lives grey and has swept away the dreams of millions of people, there are still stories of bold and courageous entrepreneurship that give reason for hope. This is the case of Castellón native Zayda Jiménez, who in the midst of this storm has managed to keep her new company afloat, a startup called Kaunus that combines two passions, music and design, to open a market that no one had thought of until now: high-end piano stools.

The musical dream that survived the pandemic

“This ‘madness’ started three years ago,” says Zayda, who before founding Kaunus was dedicated to furniture restoration. “I am a non-professional pianist, and I had always dreamed of having a grand piano. When my daughters started to learn the instrument, I said to myself ‘this is mine’, and I bought it. But when it arrived, I thought it was so beautiful that I had to have a bench of equal beauty. I started looking for designer benches on the internet, and I couldn’t find anything at all. Musical furniture is very neglected, it’s as if it didn’t matter. But it’s the place where the musician spends hours and hours playing, and it has to be given enormous importance. Since I’m dedicated to restoring antique furniture, the light bulb went on for me. If I can’t find designer benches, I’m going to make them myself. I saw that there was a safe niche market, because just like me, there were surely many more people wanting to have a special, beautiful and elegant bench for their piano.

Zayda spoke to her contacts, “cabinet makers, carpenters, upholsterers, metal workers…”, and she began to design her first creation, inspired by the pianist Iván ‘Melón’ Lewis. The stool was launched in grand style at the Palau de la Música in Valencia during the premiere of Sole Giménez’s show ‘Clásicas’, “the perfect setting” for the launch of the project. Since then, eight more models have been made for piano and cello (Pastrana, Mitsuko, Lola, Luka, Sergei, Malena, Helene and Arthur), which cost between 8,000 and 10,000 euros. It sounds like a lot of money, but taking into account that the manufacture of these small works of art requires a minimum of four months, in which noble materials are used (to give two examples: one of them is made with Spanish olive roots, and another with 200-year-old ash wood) which pass through twelve different expert craftsmen, the price is justified.

The product responds to the specific needs of each pianist, can be customized according to the client’s requests, and the possibility of making specific orders on request can be considered. In addition, it has a unique lifting system designed by Zayda herself with the help of a team of engineers, which does not work by wheel but with a hydraulic mechanism with a gas spring. “Height adjustment is very important for musicians,” explains Zayda, who has added another unique and novel extra that did not exist until now: a height display. “As three people play the piano in my house, each one has their own height. To avoid having to keep looking for your position after the stool has been used by another person, you can simply adjust it according to a scale of predetermined positions that goes from zero to twelve.”