Play for Hope
It was a story about social justice, so I had to read about it.
There is an organization in New York called Sing for Hope. They started in the spring time. While flowers were blooming, this organization insured that something else was popping up all over the streets and parks of NY. Hundreds of pianos have been placed all over the city.
You can't miss them. They have been all decorated and are like a work in the street. But, the point of the pianos is to play them. Just play and then enjoy your audience that will emerge. It is about human connections. It is using sound to gather people together. It is about healing. It is about races standing or sitting together enjoying impromptu music and song.
Music is an universal language with the power to heal. It can transform you. I remember people who took piano lessons as children often did so because they wanted to walk into a bar anywhere in the world and make friends. My parents made me take organ lessons. I can walk into any old Catholic Church in the world and have a Nun tell me to stop playing their organ which is reserved for mass only.
In the fall, the pianos will be donated to public schools. It is an arts intervention. In the city that is the mecca for the arts, lower socio-economic classes do not have access to the arts. Making beautiful music has an impact on youth. The more they appreciate the arts, the more they have the capacity for critical thinking. Music can take you to places where you don't know they can. To appreciate music, you have to suspend linear thinking and learn to think outside the box. Children that have access to arts education end up being more successful in life.
True social justice. One song at a time.
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