Classical and Jazz: Latest news>June 17- Play Me, I'm Yours - June 22-July 10
Published: 17 June 2010
by SEBASTIAN TAYLOR
THE battered second-hand piano will be standing all alone next Tuesday in the Parliament Hill bandstand on Hampstead Heath with the inviting come-on Play Me, I’m Yours.
Anyone will be able to take up the invitation and play their best, or their worst, be it Chopsticks, Chopin, Jelly Roll Morton, Rachmaninoff, Fats Waller, Scott Joplin or blessed Schubert. Players of every aptitude, from the highly gifted to the beginner, from impromptu groupies to wooing serenaders, will get a chance to tinkle its ivories.
The piano will reside on the bandstand for just over two weeks as part of the City of London Festival project Street Pianos. Some 21 pianos are to be dotted all over town, particularly in the City, by also at the British Museum, Soho Square, Leicester Square, Portobello Road and Parliament Hill bandstand. Launched for the first time in the Square Mile last year, the project is being produced by non-profit organisation Sing London and the City of London Festival.
While most will regard the pianos as an invitation to have some fun, the project can be seen as meeting some fashionable social goals.
Artist Luke Jerram, initiator of the project, says “Play Me I’m Yours” questions the ownership and rules of public space.
“It invites the public to engage with, activate and take ownership of the urban environment,” he says. “It’s about increasing the sense of public spirit in a city which can often feel cold.”
• Play Me I’m Yours runs from June 22-July 10. www. streetpianos.com/london2010/
• Details of the City of London Festival at www.colf.org