If you Google the phrase “public pianos,” you will find that donated pianos are popping up all over the world, on the streets, in parks and community gardens, ready for anyone who wants to try playing a tune. In Vancouver a program, Keys to the Streets, has been popular and they have placed 11 pianos dotted about the city.
Last year a young musician, Ruby Riesco, was walking along Gower Point Road and saw a free piano in someone’s carport. It made her think of all the places she had travelled where there were pianos in public places for people to play … and wouldn’t that be great in Gibsons? After she told her mother, her mother approached Linda Williams, organizer of the Music in the Landing shows in Gibsons.
Williams thought it was a great idea and realized its location needed to be sheltered. She turned to Wendy Gilbertson at the Town of Gibsons for help, and Gilbertson also liked the idea.
The piano had been sitting in the carport for three years at the home of the owner, Russell Nygren, who was happy to donate it. It had been in their family, given to the Nygrens by his brother, Father Peter. Now with the children grown up and moved away, it wasn’t being used. Gilbertson arranged for the Town’s loader to move the piano to the log post bus shelter on Gower Point Road where it would be under cover.
“It was given to us,” Gilbertson said, “and it’s out there for public use for however long it lasts.”
At the end of September the piano will be stored away for the winter and brought out again in the spring, whenever the weather co-operates. Someone has made a plastic cover for it to protect it from the elements, and recently Gilbertson heard someone tuning it – or trying to.
“It has been very popular and is always being played,” said Williams. “A little out of tune but hey, that’s what you get. Everyone I have talked with in Gibsons loves having it there. It’s random acts of music.”