The Pianos of Hope in the streets of New York
i24NEWS ·
David Benaym's 3 Minutes POP, live from Chase Manhattan Plaza in New York, for “C'été l'info”: "51 pianos of hope have been installed all over the five boroughs of New York," in Brooklyn, Staten Island, the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan, in public parks, streets and squares. Available all summer, they are there "for the pleasure of the eyes, sometimes of the ears, but also for the pleasure of learning," thanks to free lessons offered to all passers-by at times posted on singforhope.com. Not all the pianos were painted by the same artist: the teams of several Broadway musicals were asked to decorate theirs, in the colors of shows like Kinky Boots or Wicked. The one on the plaza, titled Signal, plays on subway lines that draw faces, "a very urban inspiration of community and of the convergences that happen when we meet, either around a work of art or around a piano." More than 10 million music lovers have already sat down at these keyboards, which will find a permanent home in elementary schools at the end of the year. Temporarily installing works of art in the city is nothing new: in the 2000s, hundreds of cows, offered as a blank canvas to local painters, invaded the streets of New York, before similar initiatives sprang up around the world, like the lions of Jerusalem in 2002, on Ben Yehuda Street or in the Montefiore mill gardens, or the colorful bears of Berlin. This time, "it is above all the interactive, playful and educational side of this initiative that makes it a success," a free attraction for tourists and New Yorkers alike. David Benaym's 3 Minutes POP in “C'été l'info”, i24NEWS in French, July 9, 2018.