By Yang Shilong, Qiu Junzhou
NEW YORK, June 4 (Xinhua) -- Sing For Hope, a New York City-based nonprofit Monday kicked off its popular annual public arts project -- dozens of painted pianos to be dispersed throughout the city to promote the importance of education in the creative arts and music.
From June 4-24, Sing for Hope, partnering with MINI USA, will place 50 pianos on the streets available for everyone to play, plus one piano on wheels that will literally bring music to people's doorsteps, announced the organization's co-founders Camille Zamora and Monica Yunus when unveiling all the 2018 art pieces at the 28 Liberty Plaza Monday afternoon.
Sing for Hope is one of the largest public non-profit projects, co-founded in 2006 by Yunus and Zamora, both sopranos graduated from the Julliard School. The project includes three programs: health outreach, youth outreach, and community outreach.
NO TWO INSTRUMENTS ARE ALIKE
This year's playable masterpieces have been created by a diverse range of artists, including the Broadway casts of Kinky Boots, Dear Evan Hansen, The Play that Goes Wrong, and Wicked, as well as leading visual artists from NYC's five boroughs and around the world.
"We founded Sing for Hope with one goal: making the arts accessible to everyone in every community. The arts enable neighborhoods to thrive by positively impacting those who live there and enriching the community as a whole," said Yunus and Zamora.
"There are a lot of walls up between people and the consumption of art," they said. "So we're bringing art to them."
The 51 one-of-a-kind Sing for Hope Pianos, no two instruments are alike, will not only provide music for three weeks in June, they will also serve 15,000 NYC students annually after the pianos are delivered to their permanent homes at the organization's "Citizen Artist Schools." The program was created in partnership with the New York City Department of Education and it now benefits over 80,000 school children each year.
Performances at each of the 50 Sing for Hope Pianos, along with pop up performances at MINIPiano stops, will be listed throughout the June 4-24 timeframe in the Sing for Hope Pianos app as they are scheduled.
"It is all about creativity and building community," said Lee Nadler, a representative for MINI USA, "These 50 pianos are pieces of art that can be played, and they bring people together. We want to bring that magic to more New Yorkers, so we created the 51st MINI piano."
The MINIPiano is within a specially designed and modified MINI Countryman that has been outfitted with a keyboard, sound system, and brightly colored exterior.
GIVE SO MUCH, GET SO MUCH
"Fosun is honored to support Sing for Hope and its work for underserved neighborhoods in New York City," said Bo Wei, chief executive representative of Fosun Group in the United States and Vice President of Fosun Property Holdings. "Our association with Sing for Hope and other arts organizations helps to advance 28 Liberty's role as a center for arts and culture in Lower Manhattan."
Each year, the Sing for Hope Pianos are brought to life at the Fosun Sing for Hope Pianos Studio at 28 Liberty, an icon of Lower Manhattan.
A Fosun Property Holdings building, 28 Liberty has donated a full 34,000-square-foot floor to serve as the communal studio where artists have designed and painted the 2018 Sing for Hope Pianos.
One of the 51 Sing for Hope Pianos will remain on the Fosun Plaza at 28 Liberty for use throughout the three-week run of the Sing for Hope Pianos program.
Jessica Browne-White, a mixed-media artist that has been working with Sing for Hope for five years, is excited to join the project this year as well.
This year, she collaborated with the cast of the Broadway musical Kinky Boots to paint an amazing red piano covered with glitter - and with the message, "You Change the World When You Change Your Mind."
"The idea of having a piece of artwork that was going to have a life after painting on it that people could enjoy was really attractive to me," said Browne-White in an interview with Xinhua.
She has worked on seven pianos in this project, individually and also with the Sing for Hope Youth Chorus and The Eric and Jessie Decker Foundation. Over these years, Sing for Hope has become her second family. "You give so much and you get so much," Jessica said, "I've never been so inspired in my life."
