Sing for Hope Pianos Return to the Nabe

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Sing for Hope‘s popular pop-up pianos are back in the nabe this week after the nonprofit installed them in three public spots: The paved open space at the corner of Washington Park and Myrtle Avenue in Fort Greene Park, the front yard of BLDG 92 in the Brooklyn Navy Yard on Flushing Avenue, and the vacant gravelly stretch between Steuben and Grand Streets underneath the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

The nonprofit organization, which recruits volunteer artists to enrich communities in New York City, placed 88 pianos in various locations throughout the five boroughs. But among all city residents, locals are among the most enthusiastic about the program, said Erin Breznitsky, the organization’s community arts coordinator.

“The excitement is so enormous,” she said. “It’s an area [where] we always get a lot of positive feedback.”

On the afternoon of Wednesday, June 5, 11-year-old Lauren Dupree played Beethoven’s Für Elise on a piano in Fort Greene Park.

“It just gives me a turn to let other people hear my music,” she said.

“She wants to come every day,” said her mother, Linda, who lives with her daughter on nearby Ashland Place.

Artist Rob Baird painted the vibrant-looking piano and named it “Doors.” From far away, the colorful doors, complete with handles and keyholes, resemble bars of colored chalk.

Across Myrtle and Park Avenues, Michael Miller applied “dazzle camouflage,” which he describes as a zigzag design that adorned ships in both World Wars, to a piano docked in a corner of BLDG 92’s front yard. Even silent, the piece pops.

Then there’s artist Royce Bannon’s piano, adorned with large letters that read “PLAY ON.” The piano sits underneath the BQE on the north side of Park Avenue. It’s not exactly a neighborhood gathering spot, but that didn’t stop Clinton Hill resident Brad Williams from skating across the road to take some photos and play a tune yesterday.

Williams said he appreciates the piano’s proximity to Ellie Balk’s 2011 mural, “Soundwaves,” which extends along an adjacent wall like a multilayered horizon.

“I love that [the piano] exists,” Williams said.

The pianos are available for anyone to play during daylight hours, so long as it doesn’t rain, through June 16. Check out a full map of the public piano locations to visit them in and outside of The Nabe.