QRS Music Technologies

QRS Music Technologies, Inc. is an American company that makes modern player pianos.

The first "hand-played" roll that QRS released was "Pretty Baby" by ragtime pianist Charley Straight.

The company went on to capture live performances by Igor Stravinsky, George Gershwin, and Duke Ellington in the era before widespread audio recording and reproduction, "documenting the history of pre-radio 20th century American popular music," as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers put it.

The second edition (1928–1929) included music overseen by Art Satherley, who had worked in the A&R department at Paramount Records.

Among the artists who recorded for QRS were Ed Bell, Clarence Williams, Katherine Henderson, Clifford Gibson, South Street Ramblers, Earl Hines, James "Stump" Johnson, Sara Martin, Anna Bell, Edith North Johnson, and Missionary Josephine Miles.

[6] In 1929, the company purchased the DeVry Corporation, a Chicago producer of movie cameras and projectors, and renamed itself QRS-DeVry.

Artists who have since recorded on it include Liberace, Peter Nero, Ferrante & Teicher, George Shearing, Roger Williams, and Eubie Blake.

In the first decade of the 2000s, QRS became the world's last maker of piano rolls after an Australian firm ceased production.

On Dec. 31, 2006, QRS produced its final piano roll—“Spring is Here,” by Rodgers and Hart, recorded by Buffalo-based pianist Michael T.