60 Public Pianos to be placed all over New York City

Touring internationally since 2008, “Play Me, I’m Yours” is an artwork by artist Luke Jerram.

From 21st June – 5th July, 60 upright pianos will be distributed across New York City by Sing for Hope. Located in public parks, streets and plazas the pianos will be available for any member of the public to play and engage with. Their website (http://www.streetpianos.com/nyc2010/) is made for you to post and share your films, photos and stories about the pianos. While documenting each piano’s journey, the website will connect the pianos with their individual communities across the city. Following the artwork, the pianos will be donated to local schools and community groups.

Play Me, I’m Yours is being presented simultaneously in London and New York. Connect here with the street pianos across the Atlantic.

http://www.streetpianos.com/nyc2010/

The street pianos project grew out of a disaster. Sky Orchestra is an performance artwork of mine that involves playing music in surround sound from 7 hot air balloons. Drifing over a city at dawn the aim is to inspire the publics’ imagination as they lie at home in their beds. In 2007 we were commissioned to perform over Birmingham and we’d promised the city council we’d reach an audience of 100,000 people. We all turned up to perform but the MET office got their weather prediction wrong and it was too windy to fly. We had to pay all the pilots and musicians for this failed attempt and had no artwork to show for it. With most of the budget blown, I had to think of a new artwork in just 3 weeks, that would reach 100,000 people. Play Me, I’m Yours is that artwork.

Play Me, I’m Yours was designed to act as a catalyst for strangers who regularly occupy the same space, to talk and connect with one another. Listening to this BBC world radio service programme, it seems to be working.

Disrupting people’s negotiation of their city, the pianos are also aimed to provoke people into engaging, activating and claiming ownership of their urban landscape.

The pianos have also levered many hidden musicians from out of the woodwork. It has become apparent that there are hundreds of pianists out there who don’t have access to a piano to play. ‘Play Me I’m Yours’ provides access to musical instruments and provides musicians an opportunity to share their creativity by performing in public.

Like Facebook, the street pianos, together with this website, provide a interconnected resource, an empty blank canvas, for the public to express themselves and share their creativity.