Street Pianos Return to Florence for 3rd Year

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On April 21, Play Me I’m Yours will return and remain until May 7, 2017. Pianos will be located throughout Florence and Lake City, available for the public to play and enjoy. The Street Pianos will be personalized and decorated by local artists. Florence is the only location in the Southeast USA this event will take place.

Florence organizers are currently seeking artists to decorate pianos for 2017. Artists interested are encouraged to send a short indication of interest to rmalfatti@sc.rr.com. Painting and decorating will begin in late February and continue through the 1st week of April. Prizes will be awarded for the Most Creative and People’s Choice designs.

In 2017 the event will again feature noon concerts on various instruments by local pianists. A large-scale inflatable sculpture, The Janis Project of artist Frank Hyder, will appear throughout the Florence and Lake City. Hyder’s works have appeared at the Carnegie Museum, CA; LaSalle Museum, PA; National Museum of Catholic Art and History, NYC; Museo Jocobo Borges, Caracas; Art Museum of Coro and many others throughout the world.

An opening night festival will be held April 21 in the Willcox Plaza on W Evans St. The event will include a dueling pianist team and a “Paint a Piano” tent for young artists.

Touring internationally since 2008, Play Me, I’m Yours is an artwork by British artist Luke Jerram. Reaching over six million people worldwide – more than 1,300 pianos have already been installed in 45 cities across the globe, from New York to London, bearing the simple instruction ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’.

Disrupting peoples’ negotiation of their city, Street Pianos are “designed to provoke people into engaging, activating and claiming ownership of their urban landscape”, says one of the organizers, Reynolds Williams. Like a musical equivalent of Facebook, it provides an” interconnected resource for the public to express themselves, meet new friends, and build upon the community.”

The Founding Sponsors include King Cadillac Buick & GMC, the Drs. Bruce & Lee Foundation, and the Willcox, Buyck & Williams Foundation. Visit www.streetpianosflorence.com for more information about the project.

This project is made possible through funding from the Florence Regional Arts Alliance’s Quarterly Grants Program, which is funded in part by a generous award from Honda of South Carolina, the South Carolina Arts Commission and the John and Susan Bennett Memorial Arts Fund of the Coastal Community Foundation of SC.