Time to tickle the ivories around town: ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’ series starts Friday

“How did that get here?”

Starting this weekend folks strolling through Codman Square Park will notice the unexpected presence by the monument of a yellow and silver piano, flanked by little bins brimming with bright yellow slide whistles, kazoos, and other plastic musical instruments.

This apparition, which was decorated by Dot resident Walter Sickert, is one of six enhanced pianos that will be placed around the Dorchester area for the next couple of weeks, each emblazoned with the invitation, “Play Me, I’m Yours.”

These six instruments are among the five dozen that the Celebrity Series of Boston has commissioned, documented, and installed. As it did back in 2013, the cultural giant is once again underwriting Boston’s participation in the international street piano movement “Play Me, I’m Yours.”

Starting tomorrow, and continuing through Oct. 10, these hard-to-miss refurbished pianos that have been decorated by 60 local artists and community groups will be available during daylight hours in public outdoor spaces in Boston and Cambridge for the public to play and to enjoy. Each piano has a community partner responsible for locking up the keyboard at night and sheltering it in bad weather.

That simple come-on “Play Me, I’m Yours” identifies each work as part of an international pop-up art movement started by Bristol, UK, installation artist Luke Jerram. Corresponding pianos have been installed in more than 50 cities and reached more than 10 million people globally.

Celebrity Series of Boston first produced Street Pianos Boston three years ago, when more than 500,000 people engaged with the pianos all across Boston. Back then local piano hotspots included the lobby of the Strand, the Franklin Park Zoo (near the Zebra entrance), Boston Nature Center in Mattapan, and Sullivan’s at Castle Island.

This time around, glammed-up uprights can be enjoyed in more and different places.

The Boys and Girls Club of Savin Hill is hosting a piano transformed by Tova Speter and two young assistants from Divas Mentoring Divas. The Lena Park CDC is hosting Ruth K. Henry’s make-over in Franklin Park. Cedric Douglas, who co-leads the Up Truck in Uphams Corner, added googly-eyes and a long dangling tongue to his very green piano by the Lenane Building in Fields Corner. And self-taught Paul Theriault did the instrument at The Carruth at 1916 Dot Avenue, near the Ashmont T Station.

Over in Mattapan, neighborhood artist Marjorie Saintill-Beliizaire, pictured and profiled in the Aug. 18 edition of the Reporter, spiffed up the piano at the Mattapan T stop, near Metro PCS . Its caretaker is African Repertory Troup, Inc, aka Mattapan Cultural Arts Development.

Most of the pianos refurbished by local artists mentioned in the Aug. 18 article landed outside the ‘hood. Mattapan’s Ayana Mack doesn’t have far to go to see how people like her piano. It’s at the Stonehenge in Egleston Square.

Dot artists have to travel a little farther . John Provenazo’s creation ended up at the Hyde Park Community Center; Joe Kitsch’s in Brattle Plaza, Cambridge; and Julia Roth’s at the Lunder Arts Center of Lesley University in Porter Square, Cambridge.

But perhaps the match made in heaven is Howie Green’s dizzyingly decorated piano at the Carousel in the Rose Kennedy Greenway.


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