Pop-Up Pianos Sprouting in Park Slope!

Photo via Park Slope Lens

Hey, Park Slope! Now's your chance to show the neighborhood how well you play Bach, Chilly Gonzales and that one Ben Folds Five song that you used as a panty dropper back in college. As part of Sing For Hope's Pop-Up Piano Project, 88 sets of ivory keys are popping up across the five boroughs, including one in Grand Army Plaza and another at the Prospect Park carousel. While there will be scheduled performances at each location, they're mostly there for passersby to hop on for some impromptu jamming.

Sing for Hope is the kind of organization that I love hearing about. According to their website, the non-profit group "mobilizes professional artists in volunteer service programs that benefit schools, hospitals and communities." For this particular project they collect "dying" pianos, refurbish them, and hand them off to artists for the beautification process. Among this year's designers are Isaac Mizrahi and Diane Von Furstenberg (my guess is that her piano is draped in an elegant, zebra-striped wrap dress). Once the installation is over the pianos will be donated to local hospitals and schools. Awwwww, you guys.

This morning FIPS photographer Spencer and I strolled on over to GAP to check out the grand piano housed in the marble gazebo, which was designed by artist Richard Fine. He says of the piano, which has been named This Too Shall Pass:

This Pop-Up Piano is about the passing of time and its inevitability. The bits of paper collaged upon this piano show us that the problems of the past always become the possibilities of the future.

Because I am less of a piano player and more of a ukulele strummer, I opted to NOT aggravate each passing jogger and dog walker with that annoying song you play with your knuckles on the black keys. Instead I let a real piano player hop on there to work his magic. It was pretty awesome. 

Cooper / Photo via Park Slope Lens